SHAKESPEARE'S 



A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM 



INTRODUCTION, AND NOTES EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL. 



FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES. 



Rev. HENRY N. HUDSON, LL.D 



GINN & COMPANY 

BOSTON • NEW YORK . CHICAGO • LONDON 



LIBRARY otGONdfiESa 
I wo CoDies rt««;c!*^ 

JUN 23 1908 

CLASS A aXc. «, 

copy a. 



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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year i88o, by 

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in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington 



GINN & COMPANY • PRO- 
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GENERAL PREFACE. 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS. 

WHY should English Literature be taught in our 
schools ? and, What is the best way of teaching it ? 
These are the questions which I propose to discuss. 

As preliminary to such discussion, it will, I think, be rightly 
in place to consider, briefly, what our people are aiming to 
prepare their children for, and what sort of an education it is 
the proper business of the school to give ; that is to say. 
what form of mind and character, and what disposition of 
the faculties, it is meant to impress. 

Now I take it that a vast majority of the pupils in our 
schools are not to pass their life as students or as authors. 
Their main business in this world is to gain an honest living 
for themselves and for those dependent on them. And no 
plan of education is just that leaves this prime consideration 
behind, in quest of any alleged higher aims : for there really 
are no higher aims ; and all pretence of such is a delusion 
and a snare. Some men, it is true, do more than gain an 
honest living ; but this is the best thing that any man does ; 
as, on the other hand, shining intellectually is the poorest 
thing that any man does, or can possibly learn to do. Then 
too most of the pupils in our schools, ninety-nine hundredths 
of them at the least, are to get their living by hand-work, not 
by head-work ; and what they need is, to have their heads 



4 GENERAL PREFACE. 

so armed and furnished as to guard their hand-work against 
error and loss, and to guide it to the most productive means 
and methods. And, for gaining an honest living by hand- 
work, the largest and best part of their education is not to be 
had in school ; it must be got somewhere else, or not at all. 
The right place, the only right place, for learning the trade 
of a farmer or a mechanic is on the farm or in the shop. 
For instance, Mr. Edward Burnett's " Deerfoot Farm," in 
Southborough, Massachusetts, is, I undertake to say, a better 
school for learning agriculture than any " agricultural col- 
lege " is likely to be. There is no practicable, nay, no pos- 
sible way of acquiring the use of tools but by actually handling 
them, and working with them. And this rule holds equally 
true in all the walks of life, — holds as true of the lawyer, the 
physician, the merchant, as of the shoemaker, the bricklayer, 
the machinist, the blacksmith. 

On this point, our people generally, at least a very large 
portion of them, have their notions all wrong side up : their 
ideas and expectations in the matter are literally preposterous. 
How the thing came to be so, it were bootless to inquire ; 
but so it clearly is. Parents, with us, are manifestly sup- 
posing that it is the business of the school to give their chil- 
dren all the education needful for gaining an honest living ; 
that their boys and girls ought to come from the school- 
teachers' hands fully armed and equipped for engaging, 
intelligently and successfully, in all sorts of work, whether of 
head or of hand. And they are evermore complaining and 
finding fault because this is not done ; that their children, 
after all, have only learnt how to use books, if indeed they 
have learnt that, and know no more how to use tools, are no 
better fitted to make or procure food and clothes, than if 
they had spent so much time in stark idleness or in sleep. 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS. 5 

But the fault is in themselves, not in the school ; their expec- 
tations on this head being altogether unreasonable, and such 
as the school cannot possibly answer. That, say what you 
please, is the plain English of the matter ; and it may as well 
be spoken. 

I repeat that, with very few exceptions, and those mostly 
applicable to girls, the most and the best that the school can 
do, or can reasonably be expected to do, is to educate the 
mind and the heart : as for the education of their children's 
hands, parents must, yes, must look for this elsewhere : 
probably their best way is to take it into their own immediate 
care, and hold themselves religiously bound to attend to it. 
Possibly, withal, some parents, as also some who drive the 
trade of idealizing about education, may need to be taught, 
or warned, that unless the school have something ready made 
to its hand, unless the pupil bring to it something inside his 
skull, it cannot educate his mind : brains it cannot furnish ; 
though it is often blamed for not doing this too. And, good 
as vocal intelligence may be, yet, for all the practical ends, 
and even the dignities, of life, manual intelligence is vastly 
better : this it is that makes both the artist and the artisan : 
and without this the former, however it may prattle and glit- 
ter, can neither plough the field nor reap the corn, neither 
tan the leather nor make the shoe, neither shape the brick 
nor build the wall, neither grind the flour nor bake the 
bread. 

But I suspect our American parents have become some- 
what absurdly, and not very innocently, ambitious of having 
their boys and girls all educated to be gentlemen and ladies ; 
which is, I take it, the same in effect as having them edu- 
cated to be good for nothing ; too proud or too lazy to live 
by hand-work, while they are nowise qualified to live by 



6 GENERAL PREFACE. 

head-work, nor could get any to do, if they were. And so 
they insist on having their children taught how to do some- 
thing, perhaps several things, without ever soiling their fingers 
by actually doing any thing. If they would, in all meekness 
and simplicity of heart, endeavour to educate their children 
to be good for something, they would be infinitely more likely 
to overtake the aim of their sinful and stupid ambition. The 
man who has been well and rightly educated to earn, and 
does earn, a fair living by true and solid service, he is a gen- 
tleman in the only sense in which it is not both a sin and a 
shame to be called by that title. Any form of honest service, 
however plain and humble, has manliness in it, and is there- 
fore a higher style of gentility, and a sounder basis of self- 
respect, than any, even the proudest, form of mere social 
ornamentation. The dull boy, who cannot prate science, 
but can drive a cart as a cart ought to be driven, or the dull 
girl who cannot finger a piano, but can rightly broil a beef- 
steak, is, in the eye of all true taste, a far more sightly and 
attractive object than the most learned and accomplished 
good-for-nothing in the world. I have seen men calling 
themselves doctors, who, week after week, month after 
month, year after year, were going about making sham calls 
on bogus patients, that so they might either get themselves 
a practice or make men believe they had got one ; and have 
thought that the poorest drudge, who honestly ate his bread, 
or what little he could get, in the sweat of his face, was a 
prince in comparison with them. An aristocratic idler or 
trifler or spendthrift or clothes -frame, however strong he may 
smell of the school and the college, of books and of lingual 
culture, is no better than a vulgar illiterate loafer ; nor can 
his smart clothes and his perfumes and his lily hands and his 
fashionable airs shield him from the just contempt of thought- 
ful men and sensible women 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS. 7 

Now so long as people proceed upon the notion that their 
children's main business in this world is to shine, and not to 
work, and that the school has it in special charge to fit them 
out at all points for a self-supporting and reputable career in 
life ; just so long they will continue to expect and demand 
of the school that which the school cannot give ; to grumble 
and find fault because it fails to do what they wish ; and to 
insist on having its methods changed till their preposterous 
demands are satisfied. On the other hand, the school could 
do its proper work much better, if people would but come 
down, or rather come up, to a just conception of what that 
work is. But it must needs fail, in a greater or less degree, 
to do that part of education which falls within its legitimate 
province, while struggling and beating about in a vain en- 
deavour to combine this with that part which fairly lies out- 
side of its province. For, in straining to hit the impossible, 
we are pretty sure to miss the possible. And all experienced 
teachers know right well that those parents who faithfully do 
their own part in the education of their children are most 
apt to be satisfied with what the school is doing. 

It is, then, desirable that children should learn to think, 
but it is indispensable that they should learn to work ; 
and I believe it is possible for a large, perhaps the larger, 
portion of them to be so educated as to find pleasure in 
both. But the great question is, how to render the desira- 
ble thing and the indispensable thing mutually helpful and 
supplementary. For, surely, the two parts of education, the 
education of the mind and the education of the hand, though 
quite distinct in idea, and separate in act, are not, or need 
not be, at all antagonistic. On the contrary, the school can, 
and should, so do its part as to cooperate with and further 
that part which lies beyond its province. And it is both the 



8 GENERAL PREFACE. 

office and the aim of a wise benevolence in teachers so to 
deal with the boys under their care as to make them, if pos- 
sible, intelligent, thoughtful, sober-minded men, with hearts 
set and tuned to such services and such pleasures as reason 
and religion approve ; also, to make them prudent, uptight; 
patriotic citizens, with heads so stocked and tempered as not 
to be " cajoled and driven about in herds " by greedy, ambi- 
tious, unprincipled demagogues, and the political gamesters 
of the day. And here it is to be noted, withal, that any man 
who gains an honest living for himself, whether lettered or 
unlettered, is a good citizen in the right sense of the term ; 
and that human slugs and do-nothings, however book-learned 
they may be, are not good citizens. 

As for the women, let it suffice that their rights and inter- 
ests in this matter are coordinate with those of the men ; 
just that, and no more. Their main business, also, is to get 
an honest living. And the education that unprepares them 
or leaves them unprepared for this is the height of folly and 
of wrong. And I hope the most of them are not going to 
turn students or authors by profession, nor to aim at eating 
their bread in the sweat of the brain. For things have al- 
ready come to that pass with us, that any fool can write a 
book : the great difficulty is in finding people who know 
enough and have strength enough not to attempt it. 

And here let me say that the greatest institution in the 
world is the family ; worth all the others put together, and 
the foundation of them all. So, again, the greatest art 
known among men is housekeeping, which is the life of the 
family. For what are we poor mortals good for, in head, 
heart, hand, or any thing else, without healthy, eupeptic 
stomachs ? and how are we to have such stomachs without 
good cooking? So that I reckon housekeeping to be just 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS. 9 

the last thing that any lady can afford to be ignorant of. 
The finest accomplishment too that woman was ever beauti- 
fied with. This part of woman's education, also, is to be 
gained at home ; it cannot be gained anywhere else. As for 
those young ladies who are above going into the kitchen, and 
learning this great art by actually working at it, my advice is, 
that they forthwith migrate to a world where the home and 
the family have no place, and where babies are not to be 
born and nursed. 

Our girls in school, then, should, first of all, be fashioned 
for intelligent, thoughtful, sober-minded women ; with souls 
attempered and attuned to the honest and ennobling delec- 
tations of the fireside ; their heads furnished and disposed 
to be prudent, skillful, dutiful wives and mothers and house- 
keepers ; home-loving and home-staying ; formed for steady 
loves, serene attachments, quiet virtues, and the whole flock 
of household pieties ; all suited to the office of 

A creature not too bright or good 
For human nature's daily food. 

The love of home, and the art of making home lovely, must 
be mainly acquired in the works and enjoyments of home ; 
and the best thing that the school can do is to cooperate 
with the home to that end. 

But the most important item in this account, and that 
which is the main subject of what I have to say, is yet to 
come. 

We have reached a stage of civilization and general cul- 
ture in which both the virtue and the happiness of people 
depend very much on their intellectual forming and furnish- 
ing. And as this holds true alike of both sexes, so both will 
be included alike in the scope of what I have in mind to 



IO GENERAL PREFACE. 

speak further. Books, of one sort or another, are now, on 
every hand, a common resort for entertainment and pleasure, 
and are likely to become more and more so. Wealth has 
greatly accumulated ; machinery has come to do a large part 
of our work ; and all sorts of people have more or less of 
leisure on their hands. This leisure ought not to be spent 
in idleness, neither will it be. In the vacancy of their hands 
people's thoughts will needs be busy either for the better or 
for the worse : if their minds are not dressed for the abode 
of the Deity, they will be workshops of the Devil. And 
reading does in fact bear a large part in filling up such 
vacant time. 

Now the world is getting full of devils, very potent ones 
too, in the shape of foolish and bad books. And I am apt 
to think the foolish devils in that shape even worse than the 
wicked : for they only begin the work of evil somewhat fur- 
ther off, so as to come at it the more surely ; and a slow 
creeping infection is more dangerous than a frank assault. 
Nothing so bad here as that which eludes or seduces the 
moral sentinels of the heart. I am not exactly a believer in 
the old doctrine of total depravity ; but I fear it must be 
confessed that the greater number of people take much more 
readily to that which is false and bad than to that which is 
good and true. Certainly what intoxicates and lowers stands 
a better chance with them than what sobers and elevates. 
Virtue and wisdom are an up-hill road, where they do not 
advance without some effort ; folly and vice a down-hill path, 
where it requires some effort not to advance. And this is 
quite as true in intellectual matters as in moral. Here, to 
most people, delight in what is false and bad comes sponta- 
neously ; delight in what is true and good is the slow result 
of discipline and care, and grows by postponement of im- 
pulse to law. 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS. n 

I suspect it has been taken for granted much too generally, 
that if people know how to read they will be apt enough to 
make good use of that knowledge without further concern. 
A very great mistake ! This faculty is quite as liable to abuse 
as any other : probably there is none other more sadly abused 
at this very time ; none that needs to be more carefully 
fenced about with the safeguards of judgment and taste. 
Through this faculty crowds of our young people are let into 
the society of such things as can only degrade and corrupt, 
and, to a great extent, are positively drawn away from the 
fellowship of such as would elevate and correct. Most, prob- 
ably not less than seven-eighths, of the books now read arc- 
simply a discipline of debasement ; ministering fierce stimu- 
lants and provocatives to the lower propensities, and habitu- 
ating the thoughts to the mud and slime of literary cesspools 
and slop-cooks. 

I have indeed no faith in the policy or the efficacy of at- 
tempting to squelch these springs of evil by forcible seques- 
tration, or to keep people from eating this poor devil-soup 
by muzzling them. If they will take to it, probably the best 
way is to let them have it ; perhaps it is best to act some- 
what on the plan of glutting them with it, in the hope that 
so they may outgrow it : but something might well be essayed 
so to fit and prepare them as that they may not take to it, 
and may even turn away from it with disgust when it comes 
to them. Surely, at all events, the education that delivers 
people over to such feeding is a very doubtful good. 

In view of all which, it is clearly of the highest conse- 
quence, that from their early youth people should have their 
minds so bent and disposed as to find pleasure in such books 
as are adapted to purify and raise. I say pleasure, because 
we cannot rely, neither ought we, on arguments of right in 



12 GENERAL PREFACE. 

this matter. Reading even good books without pleasure, 
and merely from a sense of duty, is of little benefit, and may 
even do hurt, by breeding insensibly an aversion to what is 
good, and by investing it with irksome associations. A genial 
delight in that which is good is what sets the colours of it 
in the mind : without this, the mind grows at odds with it. 
People cannot be droned or bored into virtue ; and if evil 
were made as tedious to them as good often is, I suspect 
their hearts would soon be weaned from ugliness, and won to 
a marriage with beauty. And the pith of my argument is, 
that it is what people take pleasure in that really shapes and 
determines their characters. So experience has taught me 
that the characters of students in college are influenced far 
more by their reading than by their studies. From the books 
they take to you may judge at once whither their spirits are 
tending, and what they are inwardly made of, because here 
they generally go by free choice and pleasure. In brief, they 
study what they must ; they read what they love ; and their 
souls are and will be in the keeping of their loves. Even 
the breath of excellence is apt to be lost, if it be not waited 
on by delight ; while, to love worthy objects, and in a worthy 
manner, is the top and crown of earthly good, ay, and of 
heavenly good also. Considering how clear and evident all 
this is, that so little is done, even in our highest seats of 
learning, to form the tastes and guide the reading of students, 
may well be matter of grief and astonishment. I have long 
wondered at it, and often sickened over it. 

Now, to fence against the growing pestilence of foolish 
and bad books, I know of but one way ; and that is by en- 
deavouring systematically so to familiarize the young with the 
best and purest mental preparations, and so to prepossess 
them with the culture of that which is wholesome and good, 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS. 13 

that they may have an honest, hearty relish for it. The 
thing is, to plant the mind full of such loves, and so to set 
and form the intellectual tastes and habits, that the vicious 
and false will be spontaneously refused, and the healthy and 
true be freely preferred ; this too, not from any novelty in it, 
but for the experienced sweetness and beauty of it, and for 
the quiet joy that goes in company with it. 

Let the efficacy of a very few good books be seasonably 
steeped into the mind, and then, in the matter of their 
reading, people will be apt to go right of their own accord ; 
and assuredly they will never be got to go right except of 
their own accord. You may thus hope to predispose and 
attune the faculties of choice to what is noble and sweet, 
before the springs of choice are vitiated by evil or ignorant 
conversations. If people have their tastes set betimes to 
such authors as Spenser and Shakespeare, Addison, Scott, 
Wordsworth, and Charles Lamb, is it likely that they will 
stomach such foul stuff as the literary slums and grog-shops 
of the day are teeming with ? I hope it is not so, and I will 
not readily believe it can be so. Nor can I see any imprac- 
ticability, any insuperable difficulty here. Instances of native 
dulness or perversity there will indeed be, such as no soul- 
music can penetrate : but that, as a general thing, young 
minds, yet undeflowered by the sensational flash and fury of 
vulgar book-makers, will be found proof against the might 
and sweetness of that which is intellectually beautiful and 
good, provided they be held in communication with it long 
enough for its virtue to penetrate them, is what I will not, 
must not, believe, without a fairer trial than has yet been 
made. 

In reference to the foregoing points, a well-chosen and 
well-used course of study in the best English classics seems 



14 GENERAL PREFACE. 

the most eligible and most effective preparation. Whether 
to the ends of practical use or of rational pleasure, this can- 
not but be the right line of early mental culture. The direct, 
aids and inspirations of religion excepted, what better nursery 
can there be of just thoughts and healthy tastes ? what more 
apt to train and feed the mind for the common duties, inter- 
ests, affections, and enjoyments of life ? For the very process 
here stands in framing and disposing the mind for intercourse 
with the sayings of the wise, with the gathered treasures of 
light and joy, and with the meanings and beauties of Nature 
as seen by the eye, and interpreted by the pen, of genius 
and wisdom. 

We are getting sadly estranged from right ideas as to the 
nature and scope of literary workmanship. For literature, in 
its proper character, is nowise a something standing outside 
of and apart from the practical service of life ; a sort of moon- 
shine world, where the working understanding sleeps for the 
idle fancy to dream. This is no doubt true in regard to most 
of the books now read ; which are indeed no books, but 
mere devils and dunces in books' clothing ; but it is not at 
all true of books that are books indeed. These draw right 
into the substance and pith of actual things ; the matter of 
them is " labour'd and distill'd through all the needful uses of 
our lives " ; the soul of their purpose is to arm and strength- 
en the head, and to inspire and direct the hand, for pro- 
ductive work. That an author brings us face to face with 
real men and things, and helps us to see them as they are ; 
that he furnishes us with enablements for conversing ration- 
ally, and for wrestling effectively, with the problems of living, 
operative truth ; that he ministers guidance and support for 
thinking nobly and working bravely in the services, through 
the perils, under the difficulties and adversities of our state, 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS. 15 

— this is the test and measure of his worth ; this is the sole 
basis of his claim to rank as a classic. This, to be sure, is 
not always done directly, neither ought it to be ; for the 
helps that touch our uses more or less indirectly often serve 
us best, because they call for and naturally prompt our own 
mental and moral cooperation in turning them to practical 
account. 

It is such literature that the poet has in view when he 
tells us, — 

books, we know, 
Are a substantial world, both pure and good : 
Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, 
Our pastime and our happiness will grow. 

And books are yours, 
Within whose silent chambers treasure lies 
Preserved from age to age ; more precious far 
Than that accumulated store of gold 
And orient gems which, for a day of need, 
The Sultan hides deep in ancestral tombs : 
These hoards you can unlock at will. 

Nor is it the least benefit of such authors that they reconcile 
and combine utility with pleasure, making each ministrative 
to the other ; so that the grace of pleasant thoughts becomes 
the sweeter for their usefulness, and the virtue of working 
thoughts the more telling for their pleasantness ; the two thus 
pulling and rejoicing together. For so the right order of 
mental action is where delight pays tribute to use, and use 
to delight ; and there is no worse corruption of literature in 
the long run than where these are divorced, and made to 
pull in different lines. Such pleasure is itself uplifting, be- 
cause it goes hand in hand with duty. And as life, with its 
inevitable wants and cares and toils, is apt to be hard enough 
at the best with most of us, there is need of all the assuage- 



1 6 GENERAL PREFACE. 

ments and alleviations that can come from this harmonizing 
process. Pressed as we are with heavy laws, happy indeed 
is he 

Who from the well-spring of his own clear breast 
Can draw, and sing his griefs to rest. 

Next to a good conscience and the aids of Christian faith, 
there is no stronger support under the burdens of our lot 
than the companionship of such refreshing and soul-lifting 
thoughts as spring up by the wayside of duty, from our being 
at home with the approved interpreters of Nature and truth. 
This is indeed to carry with us in our working hours a power 

That beautifies the fairest shore, 
And mitigates the harshest clime. 

Now I do not like to hear it said that our school-education 
can do nothing towards this result. I believe, nay, I am 
sure, it can do much ; though I have to admit that it has 
done and is doing far less than it might. I fear it may even 
be said that our course is rather operating as a hindrance 
than as a help in this respect. What sort of reading are our 
schools planting an appetite for ? Are they really doing any 
thing to instruct and form the mental taste, so that the pupils 
on leaving them may be safely left to choose their reading 
for themselves ? It is clear in evidence that they are far from 
educating the young to take pleasure in what is intellectually 
noble and sweet. The statistics of our public libraries show 
that some cause is working mightily to prepare them only 
for delight in what is both morally and intellectually mean 
and foul. It would not indeed be fair to charge our public 
schools with positively giving this preparation ; but it is their 
business to forestall and prevent such a result. If, along with 
the faculty of reading, they cannot also impart some safe- 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS. 1 7 

guards of taste and habit against such a result, will the system 
prove a success ? 

As things now go, English literature is postponed to almost 
every thing else in our public schools : much as ever it can 
gain admission at all ; and the most that can be got for it is 
merely such fag-ends of time as may possibly be spared from 
other studies. We think it a fine thing to have our children 
studying Demosthenes and Cicero ; but do not mind having 
them left almost totally ignorant of Burke and Webster. Yet, 
in the matter of practical learning, ay, and of liberal learning 
too, for deep and comprehensive eloquence, for instruction 
in statesmanship, and in the principles of civil order and 
social well-being, Burke alone is worth more than all the 
oratory of Greece and Rome put together ; albeit I am far 
from meaning to disrepute the latter. And a few of Webster's 
speeches, besides their treasure of noble English, — " a manly 
style fitted to manly ears," — have in them more that would 
come home to the business and bosoms of our best American 
intelligence, more that is suited to the ends of a well-in- 
structed patriotism, than all that we have inherited from the 
lips of ancient orators. 

So, again, we spare no cost to have our children delving 
in the suburbs and outskirts of Homer and Virgil ; for not 
one in fifty of them ever gets beyond these ; yet we take no 
pains to have them living in the heart of Shakespeare and 
Wordsworth : while there is in Shakespeare a richer fund of 
" sweetness and light," more and better food for the intel- 
lectual soul, a larger provision of such thoughts as should 
dwell together with the spirit of a man, and be twisted about 
his heart for ever, than in the collective poetry of the whole 
ancient heathen world. 

It may indeed be said that these treasures are in a language 



1 8 GENERAL PREFACE. 

already known, and so are accessible to people without any 
special preparation ; and that the school is meant to furnish 
the keys to such wealth as would else be locked up from 
them. But our public schools leave the pupils without any 
taste for those native treasures, or any aptitude to enjoy them : 
the course there pursued does almost nothing to fit and 
dispose the pupils for communing with the wisdom and 
beauty enshrined in our mother-tongue ; while hardly any so 
master the Greek and Latin as to hold communion with the 
intellectual virtue which they enshrine. Few, very few, after 
all, can be trained to love Homer ; while there are, I must 
think, comparatively few who cannot be trained to love 
Shakespeare ; and the main thing is to plant that love. The 
point, then, is just here : Our schools are neither giving the 
pupils the key to the wisdom of Homer, nor disposing them 
to use the key to the wisdom of Shakespeare. And so the 
result is that, instead of bathing in the deep, clear streams 
of thought, ancient or modern, they have no taste but for 
waddling or wallowing in the shallow, turbid puddles of the 
time ; — 

Best pleased with what is aptliest framed 
To enervate and defile. 

It is a notorious fact that among our highly-educated peo- 
ple, the graduates of our colleges, really good English scholars 
are extremely rare. 1 suspect it is not too much to say that 
among our instructors there are at least twenty competent to 
teach Greek and Latin, where there is one competent to 
teach English literature. Very few indeed of them are really 
at home in the great masters of our native tongue, so as to 
make them matter of fruitful exercise in the class-room. 
They know not how to come at them, or to shape their 
course in teaching them. Their minds are so engrossed 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS. 1 9 

with the verbal part of learning, that, unless they have a husk 
of words to stick in, as in studying a foreign tongue, they 
can hardly find where to stick at all. 

This habit, I suppose, comes mainly as a tradition from a 
former age ; a habit which, though begun upon good causes, 
has been kept up long after those causes were done away. 
The prevailing ideas herein got fixed at a time when there 
was no well-formed English literature in being; when the 
language itself was raw and rude ; and when the world's 
whole stock of intellectual wealth was enshrined in other 
tongues. The custom thus settled from necessity is contin- 
ued to this day, when the English tongue, besides its own 
vast fund of original treasure, has had the blood of all the 
best human thought transfused into its veins, and when its 
walks have grown rich and delectable with the spoils of every 
earlier fruitage of genius and learning. 

Three centuries ago Chaucer was the only really good Eng- 
lish author ; he was then two hundred years old ; and the 
language had changed so much since his time, that reading 
him was almost like studying a foreign tongue. So much 
was this the case, that Bacon thought the English was going 
to bankrupt all books entrusted to its keeping : he therefore 
took care to have most of his own works translated into 
Latin ; and now our greatest regret touching him is, that we 
have not all those works in his own noble English. Before 
his time, the language changed more in fifty years than it has 
done in all the three hundred years since. This is no doubt 
because the mighty workmen of that age, himself among 
them, did so much to " bolt off change," by the vast treasures 
of thought and wisdom which they found or made the lan- 
guage capable of expressing. The work then so gloriously 
begun has been going on ever since, though not always with 



20 GENERAL PREFACE. 

the same grand results ; until now the English is commonly 
held to be one of the richest and noblest tongues ever 
spoken, and the English literature is, in compass and variety 
of intellectual wealth, unsurpassed by any in the world. 

How strange it is, then, that, with such immense riches at 
hand in our vernacular, we should so much postpone them 
to the springs that were resorted to before those riches grew 
into being ! Because Homer and Sophocles had to be 
studied before Shakespeare wrote, why should Shakespeare 
still be ignored in our liberal education, when his mighty 
works have dwarfed Homer and Sophocles into infants? 
There might indeed be some reason in this, if he had been 
in any sort the offspring of those Greek masters : but he was 
blessedly ignorant of them ; which may partly account for his 
having so much surpassed them. He did not conceive him* 
self bound to think and write as they did ; and this seems 
to have been one cause why he thought and wrote better 
than they did. I really can see no reason for insisting on 
learning from them rather than from him, except that learn- 
ing from him is vastly easier. 

Nevertheless I am far from thinking that the Greek and 
Latin ought to be disused or made little of in our course of 
liberal learning. On the contrary, I would, of the two, have 
them studied in college even more thoroughly than they 
commonly are ; and this, not only because of their unequalled 
use in mental training and discipline, and as a preparation 
for solid merit and success in the learned professions, but 
also because a knowledge of them is so largely fundamental 
to a practical mastery of our own tongue. And here I am 
moved to note what seems to me a change for the worse 
within the last forty years. Forty years ago, besides that the 
Greek and Latin were made more of in college, at least 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS. 2 1 

relatively, than they are now, the students had both more 
time for English studies, and also more of judicious prompt- 
ing and guidance in their reading. But, of late, there has 
been so much crowding-in of modern languages and recent 
branches of science, that students have a good deal less time 
than formerly for cultivating English literature by themselves. 
In short, our colleges, it seems to me, did much more, forty 
years ago. towards setting and forming right literary and 
intellectual tastes than they are doing now. I believe they 
are now turning out fewer English scholars, and that these 
are not so well grounded and cultured in the riches of our 
native tongue. The fashion indeed has been growing upon 
us of educating the mouth much more than the mind ; which 
seems to be one cause why we are having so many more 
talkers and writers than thinkers. An unappeasable itch of 
popularity is eating out the old love of solid learning, and 
the old relish for the haunts of the Muses. 

It may have been observed, that in this argument I dis- 
tinguish somewhat broadly between a liberal and a practical 
education. Our colleges ought to give, and, I suppose, aim 
at giving the former ; while the latter is all that our public 
schools can justly be expected to give. And a large majority 
of the pupils, as I said before, are to gain their living by 
hand-work, not by head-work. But then we want them 
made capable of solid profit and of honest delight in the 
conversation of books ; for this, as things now are, is essen- 
tial both to their moral health and also to their highest 
success in work ; to say nothing of their duties and interests 
as citizens of a republican State. And, to this end, what can 
be more practical, in the just sense of the term, than planting 
and nursing in them right intellectual tastes, so that their 
reading shall take to such books as are really wholesome and 
improving f 



2 2 GENERAL PREFACE. 

On the general subject, however, I have to remark further, 
that our education, as it seems to me, is greatly overworking 
the study of language, especially in the modern languages. 
From the way our young people are hurried into French 
and German, one would suppose there were no English 
authors worth knowing, nor any thought in the English tongue 
worth learning. So we cram them with words, and educate 
them into ignorance of things, and then exult in their being 
able to " speak no sense in several languages." Surely a 
portion of the time might be as innocently spent in learning 
something worth speaking in plain mother-English. When 
we add that, with all this wear and tear of brain, the pupils, 
ten to one, stick in the crust of words, and never get through 
into the marrow of thought, so as to be at home in it, our 
course can hardly be deemed the perfection of wisdom. 

Our custom herein seems to involve some flagrant defect 
or error in our philosophy of education. The true process 
of education is to set and keep the mind in living inter- 
course with things : the works and ways of God in Nature 
are our true educators. And the right office of language is 
to serve as the medium of such intercourse. And so the 
secret of a good style in writing is, that words be used purely 
in their representative character, and not at all for their own 
sake. This is well illustrated in Shakespeare, who in his 
earlier plays used language partly for its own sake ; but in 
his later plays all traces of such use disappear : here he uses 
it purely in its representative character. This it is, in great 
part, that makes his style so much at once the delight and 
the despair of those who now undertake to write the English 
tongue. And in other writers excellence of style is measured 
by approximation to this standard. This it is that so highly 
distinguishes Webster's style, — the best yet written on this 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS. 23 

continent. His language is so transparent, that ill reading 
him one seldom thinks of it, and can hardly see it. In fact, 
the proper character of his style is perfect, consummate 
manliness ; in which quality I make bold to affirm that he 
has no superior in the whole range of English authorship. 
And in his Autobiography the great man touches the secret 
as to how this came about. " While in college," says he, 
" I delivered two or three occasional addresses, which were 
published. I trust they are forgotten : they were in very bad 
taste. I had not then learned that all true power in writing 
is in the idea, not in the style ; an error into which the Ars 
rhetorica, as it is usually taught, may easily lead stronger 
heads than mine." 

Hence it follows that language should be used and studied 
mainly in its representative character ; that is, as a medium 
for conversing with things ; and that studying it merely or 
even mainly for its own sake is a plain inversion of the 
right order. For words are of no use but as they bring us 
acquainted with the facts, objects, and relations of Nature 
in the world about us. The actual things and ideas which 
they stand for, or are the signs of, are what we ought to 
know and have commerce with. In our vernacular, words 
are, for the most part, naturally and unconsciously used in 
this way ; except where a perverse system has got us into a 
habit of using them for their own sake ; which is indeed the 
common bane of American authorship, making our style so 
intensely self-conscious, that an instructed taste soon tires 
of it. But, in studying a foreign tongue, the language itself 
is and has to be the object of thought. Probably not one in 
fifty of our college graduates learns to use the Greek and 
Latin freely as a medium of converse with things. Their 
whole mental force is spent on the words themselves ; or, if 



24 GENERAL PREFACE. 

they go beyond these to the things signified, it is to help 
their understanding of the words. 

I freely admit that language, even our own, ought to be, 
to some extent, an object of study ; but only to the end 
of perfecting our use and mastery of it as a medium. So 
that the true end of mental action is missed, where language 
is advanced into an ultimate object of study ; which is prac- 
tically making the end subordinate to the means. Here, 
however, I am anxious not to be misunderstood, and lest I 
may seem to strain the point too far ; for I know full well 
that in such a cause nothing is to be gained by breaches of 
fairness and candour. It is a question of relative measure 
and proportion. And I mean that our education treats lan- 
guage quite too much as an object of thought, and quite too 
little as a medium. Our students, it seems to me, are alto- 
gether too much brought up in "the alms-basket of words"; 
and of too many of them it may not unfairly be said, " They 
have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the 
scraps." 

I have said that our custom in this matter stands partly as 
a tradition from a long-past age when there was no English 
literature in being. But this does not wholly explain it. The 
thing proceeds in great part from a perverse vanity of going 
abroad and sporting foreign gear, unmindful of the good 
that lies nearer home. Hence boys and girls, especially the 
latter, are hurried into studying foreign languages before 
they have learnt to spell correctly or to read intelligibly in 
their own. I say girls especially, because, since the women 
set out to equal, perhaps to eclipse, the men in brain-power, 
a mighty ambition has invaded them to be flourishing their 
lingual intellectuality in our faces. Besides, the fashion now 
is to educate young women for any place rather than for 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS. 25 

home. Most of them hope some time to spend six months 
travelling in Europe ; and they think far more of preparing 
for that holiday than for all the working-day honours and 
services of life. And I fear it must be said withal, that we 
are the most apish people on the planet. I wish we may 
not prove " the servum pecus of a Gallic breed." Be that as 
it may, parents among us apparently hold it a much grander 
thing to have their children chopping Racine and Voltaire 
than conversing with the treasures of wisdom and beauty in 
our own tongue ; as if smattering French words were better 
than understanding English and American things. 

Thus our school education is growing to be very much a 
positive dispreparation for the proper cares, duties, interests,, 
and delectations of life. The further a thing draws from any 
useful service or common occasion, the more pride there is 
in studying it. Whatever will serve best to prank up the 
mind for flaunting out its life away from home, that seems to 
be our first concern. To this end, we prefer something out 
of the common way ; something that can be turned to no 
account, save to beguile a frivolous and fashionable leisure, 
or to mark people off from ordinary humanity, and wrap 
them up in the poor conceit of an aristocratic style. In 
short, we look upon the honest study of our honest mother- 
English as a vulgar thing ; and it pleases us to forget that 
this squeamish turning-up of the nose at what is near and 
common is just the vulgarest thing in the world. Surely we 
cannot too soon wake up to the plain truth, that real honour 
and elevation, as well as solid profit, are to grow by convers- 
ing with the things that live and work about us, and by giv- 
ing our studious hours to those masters of English thought 
from whom we may learn to read, soberly, modestly, and 
with clear intelligence, a few pages in the book of life. 



26 GENERAL PREFACE. 

The chief argument in support of the prevailing custom is, 
that the study of languages, especially the Greek and Latin, 
is highly serviceable as a mental gymnastic. No doubt it is 
so. But the study, as it is managed with us, may be not un- 
fairly charged with inverting the true relative importance of 
mental gymnastic and mental diet. Formerly the Greek and 
Latin were held to be enough ; but now, by adding three or 
four modern languages, we are making the linguistic element 
altogether too prominent. We thus give the mind little time 
for feeding, little matter to feed upon ; and so keep it exer- 
cising when it ought to be feeding : for so the study of words 
has much exercise and little food. Now such an excess 
of activity is not favourable to healthy growth. Substituting 
stimulants for nourishment is as bad for the mind as for the 
body. Supply the mind with wholesome natural food ; do 
all you can to tempt and awaken the appetite ; and then 
trust somewhat to nature. True, some minds, do your best, 
will not eat ; but, if they do not eat, then they ought not to 
act. For dulness, let me tell you, is not so bad as disease ; 
and, from straining so hard to stimulate and force the mind 
into action without eating, nothing but disease can result. 
Depend upon it, there is something wrong with us here : 
food and exercise are not rightly proportioned in our method. 
In keeping the young mind so much on a stretch of activity, 
as if the mere exercise of its powers were to be sought for its 
own sake, we are at war with nature. And a feverish, rest- 
less, mischievous activity of mind is the natural consequence 
of such a course ; unless, which is sometimes the case, the 
mental forces get dried into stiffness from mere heat of gym- 
nastic stress. 

We are now having quite too much of this diseased men- 
tal activity. Perhaps our greatest danger lies in a want of 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS. 27 

mental repose. The chronic nervous intensity thus generated 
is eating the life out of us, and crushing the nobler energies 
of duty and virtue, ay, and of sound intelligence too. For, 
while we are thus overworking the mind, the muscular and 
nutritive systems of course suffer ; so that, first we know, the 
mind itself gives out ; and people go foolish or crazy from 
having been educated all into nerves. Composure is the 
right pulse of mental health, as it is also of moral ; and " a 
heart that watches and receives " will gather more of wis- 
dom than a head perpetually on the jump. We need " the 
harvest of a quiet eye," that feeds on the proportions of 
truth as she beams from the works of Nature and from the 
pages of Nature's high-priests. But now we must be in a 
giddy whirl of brain-excitement, else we are miserable, and 
think our mental faculties are in peril of stagnation. Of in- 
tellectual athletes we have more than enough ; men, and 
women too, who think to renovate the world, and to immor- 
talize themselves, by being in a continual rapture and tumult 
of brain-exercise ; minds hopelesly disorbed from the calm- 
ness of reason, and held in a fever of activity from sheer lack 
of strength to sit still. It was such minds that Bacon had in 
view when he described man in a certain state as being " a 
busy, mischievous, wretched thing, no better than a kind of 
vermin." To be intellectual, to write books, to do wonders 
<n mental pyrotechny, is not the chief end of man, nor can 
we make it so. This is indeed what we seem to be aiming 
at, but we shall fail ; Nature will prove too strong for us here : 
and, if we persist, she will just smash us up, and replace us 
with a people not so tormentedly smart. It is to the meek, 
not the brilliant, that the possession of the Earth is promised. 
My conclusion from the whole is, that, next to the elemen- 
tary branches, and some parts of science, such as geography, 



28 GENERAL PREFACE. 

astronomy, and what is called natural philosophy, standard 
authors in English literature ought to have a place in our 
school education. Nor am I sure but that, instead of thus 
postponing the latter to science, it were still better to put 
them on an equal footing with it. For they draw quite as 
much into the practical currents of our American life as any 
studies properly scientific do ; and, which is of yet higher 
regard, they have it in them to be much more effective in 
shaping the character. For they are the right school of har- 
monious culture as distinguished from mere formal knowl- 
edge ; that is, they are a discipline of humanity : and to 
have the soul rightly alive to the difference between the noble 
and the base is better than understanding the laws of chem- 
ical affinity. 

As to the best way of teaching English literature, I may 
speak the more briefly on this, inasmuch as a good deal to 
the point has been, I hope not obscurely, implied in the re- 
marks already made. 

In the first place, I am clear that only a few of the very best 
and fittest authors should be used ; and that these should be 
used long enough, and in large enough portions, for the pu- 
pils to get really at home with them, and for the grace and 
efficacy of them to become thoroughly steeped into the mind. 
Bacon tells us that " some books are to be tasted, others to 
be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested." 
Of course it is only the latter that I deem worthy to be used 
in school. And I lay special stress on the pupil's coming at 
an author in such a way, and staying with him so long, as to 
study him with honest love and delight. This is what sets 
and fixes the taste. And this is a thing that cannot be extem- 
porized : the process necessarily takes considerable time. 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS. 29 

For wise men's thoughts are a presence to live in, to feed 
upon, and to grow into the likeness of. And the benefit of 
a right good book all depends upon this, that its virtue just 
soak into the mind, and there become a living, generative 
force. 

Do you say that this shuts off from pupils the spur and 
charm of novelty ? Yes, that it does, else I would not urge 
it. What I want first of all is to shut off the flashy, fugitive 
charm of novelty, so as to secure the solid, enduring charm 
of truth and beauty ; for these are what it does the soul good 
to be charmed with, and to tie up in the society of, — the 
charm of a " concord that elevates and stills " ; while the 
charm of novelty is but as " the crackling of thorns under a 
pot," — not the right music for soul-sweetening. "A thing 
of beauty is a joy for ever." And they know nothing of the 
genesis of the human affections, who have not learned that 
these thrive best in the society of old familiar faces. To be 
running and rambling over a great many books, tasting a lit- 
tle here, a little there, and tying up with none, is good for 
nothing in school ; nay, worse than nothing. Such a process 
of " unceasing change " is also a discipline of " perpetual 
emptiness." It is as if a man should turn free-lover, and take 
to himself a new wife every week ; in which case I suppose 
he would soon become indifferent to them all, and conclude 
one woman to be just about as good as another. The 
household affections do not grow in that way. And the 
right method in the culture of the mind is to take a few 
choice books, and weave about them 

the fix'd delights of house and home, 
Friendships that will not break, and love that cannot roam. 

Again : In teaching English literature, I think it is not best 



30 GENERAL PREFACE. 

to proceed much, if at all, by recitations, but by what may 
be called exercises ; the pupils reading the author under the 
direction, correction, and explanation of the teacher. The 
thing is to have the pupils, with the teacher's help and guid- 
ance, commune with the author while in class, and quietly 
drink in the sense and spirit of his workmanship. Such 
communing together of teacher and pupils with the mind of 
a good book cannot but be highly fruitful to them both : an 
interplay of fine sympathies and inspirations will soon spring 
up between them, and pleasant surprises of truth and good 
will be stealing over them. The process indeed can hardly 
fail to become a real sacrament of the heart between them ; 
for they will here find how " one touch of nature makes the 
whole world kin." 

Nor would I attempt to work into these exercises any thing 
of grammar or rhetoric or philology, any further than this 
may be clearly needful or conducive to a full and fair under- 
standing of the matter read. To use a standard author 
mainly as a theme or text for carrying on studies in philol- 
ogy, is in my account just putting the cart before the horse. 
Here the end is or should be to make the pupils understand 
and relish what the author delivers ; and whatever of philo- 
logical exercise comes in should be held strictly subordinate 
to this. 

With my classes in Shakespeare and Wordsworth, as also 
in Burke and Webster, I am never at all satisfied, unless I 
see the pupils freely taking pleasure in the workmanship. 
For such delight in a good book is to me a sure token and 
proof that its virtue is striking in and going to the spot. 
Rather say, it is a pledge, nay, it is the very pulsation, of 
sympathy and vital magnetism between the mind within and 
the object without. And without this blessed infection 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS. 3 1 

beaming in the face and sparkling in the eyes, even the 
honest striving of duty on the pupil's part rather discourages 
me. So, unless I can get the pupils to be happy in such 
communion, I am unhappy myself; and this, I suppose, 
because it is naturally unpleasant to see people standing in 
the presence and repeating the words of that which is good, 
and tasting no sweetness therein. For " what is noble should 
be sweet " ; and ought, if possible, to be bound up with none 
but pleasant associations ; that so delight and love may hold 
the mind in perpetual communion with the springs of health 
and joy. And if I can plant in young minds a genuine relish 
for the authors I have named, then I feel tolerably confident 
that the devils now swarming about us in the shape of bad 
books will stand little chance with them ; for I know right 
well that those authors have kept legions of such devils off 
from me. 

From all which it follows, next, that, in teaching English 
literature, I would have nothing to do with any works in 
formal rhetoric, or with any general outlines, or any rapid 
and wide surveys, or any of the school reading-books now 
in use, which are made up of mere chips from a multitude 
of authors, and so can have little effect but to generate a 
rambling and desultory habit of mind. To illustrate my 
meaning, it may not be amiss to observe, that some years 
ago I knew of a program being set forth officially, which em- 
braced little bits from a whole rabble of American authors, 
most of them still living; but not a single sentence from 
Daniel Webster ; who, it seems to me, is perhaps the only 
American author that ought to have been included in the list. 
This program was drawn up for a course in English literature 
to be used in the public schools. Instead of such a mis- 
cellaneous collection of splinters, my thought was then, and 



32 GENERAL PREFACE. 

is now, Give us a good large block of Webster ; enough for 
at least two exercises a week through half a year. This 
would afford a fair chance of making the pupils really at 
home with one tall and genuine roll of intellectual manhood ; 
which done, they would then have something to guide and 
prompt them into the society of other kindred rolls : whereas, 
with the plan proposed, there is no chance of getting them 
at home with any intellectual manhood at all ; nay, rather, it 
is just the way to keep them without any intellectual home, — 
a nomadic tribe of literary puddle -sippers. 

As for the matter of rhetoric, all that can be of much use 
in this is, I think, best learned in the concrete, and by famil- 
iarizing the mind with standard models of excellence. For 
the right use of speech goes by habit, not by rule. And if 
people should happen to use their vernacular clearly and 
handsomely without knowing why, where is the harm of it? 
Is not that enough? What more do you want? If you 
would learn to speak and write the English tongue correctly, 
tastefully, persuasively, leave the rhetorics behind, and give 
your days and nights to the masters of English style. This 
will tend to keep you from all affectation of " fine writing," 
than which literature has nothing more empty and vapid. 
Besides, it is only after the mind has grown largely and 
closely conversant with standard authors, that studying rhe- 
torical rules and forms can be of much practical use, how- 
ever it may do for showing off in recitation. And I am in 
doubt whether it were not better omitted even then : for such 
study, in so far as it is trusted in for forming a good style, 
can hardly work any thing but damage in that respect ; and 
this because it naturally sets one to imitating other men's 
verbal felicities ; which is simply a pestilent vice of style. 
Therewithal the study is but too apt to possess the student, 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS. 33 

perhaps unconsciously, with the notion that men are to 
"laugh by precept only, and shed tears by rule " ; a sort of 
laughter and tears from which I shall beg to be excused. 
On this point, my first, second, and third counsel is, — 

the live current quaff, 
And let the groveller sip his stagnant pool, 
In fear that else, when Critics grave and cool 
Have killed him, Scorn should write his epitaph. 

Against the course I have been marking out, the objection 
is sometimes urged that it would cut pupils off from contem- 
porary authors. It would do so indeed, and I like it the 
better for that. I have already implied that no literary 
workmanship, short of the best there is to be had, ought to 
be drawn upon for use in school. For the natural alliance 
of taste and morals is much closer than most people suppose. 
In fact, taste is, in my account, a kind of intellectual con- 
science : downright, perfect honesty is the first principal of 
it ; solidity is its prime law ; and all sorts of pretence, affec- 
tation, and sham are its aversion : so that it amounts to about 
the same thing as the perfect manliness which I find in Web- 
ster's style. — Now, for the due approval of excellence in 
literary art, a longer time than the individual life is commonly 
required. Of the popular writers now living, probably not 
one in five hundred will be heard of thirty years hence. I 
have myself outlived two generations of just such immortal 
writers, — whole regiments of them. Of course there are 
fashions in literature, as in other things. These are apt to be 
bad enough at the best, — bad enough anywhere ; but the 
school is just the last place, except the church, where they 
ought to be encouraged. Be assured that, in the long run, 
it will not pay to have our children in school making 
acquaintance with the fashionable writers of the day. For, 



34 GENERAL PREFACE. 

long before the pupils now in school reach maturity, another 
set of writers will be in popular vogue ; their tenure to be 
equally transient in turn. 

Unquestionably the right way in this matter is, to start the 
young with such authors as have been tested and approved 
by a large collective judgment. For it is not what pleases at 
first, but what pleases permanently, that the human mind 
cares to keep alive. What has thus withstood the wear of 
time carries solid proof of having strength and virtue in it. 
For example, poetry that has no holiness in it may be, for it 
often has been, vastly popular in its day ; but it has and can 
have no lasting hold on the heart of man. True, there may 
be good books written in our day ; I think there are : but 
there needs a longer trial than one generation to certify us 
of the fact, so as to warrant us in adopting an author for 
standard use. And that a new book seems to us good, may 
be in virtue of some superficial prepossession which a larger 
trial will utterly explode. We need better assurance than 
that. 

It is indeed sometimes urged that, if the young be thus 
trained up with old authors, they will be in danger of falling 
behind the age. But it is not so. The surest way of coming 
at such a result is by pre-engaging them with the literary 
freaks and fashions and popularities of the day. To hold 
them aloof from such flitting popularities, to steep their minds 
in the efficacy of such books as have always been, and are 
likely to be, above the fashion of the day, — this is the true 
course for setting them in advance of the time ; and, unless 
they be set in advance of it, they will certainly fail to keep 
abreast with it. For the wisdom that has had the long and 
strong approval of the past, is most likely to be the wisdom 
of the future ; and the way to keep pace with the age is by 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS. 35 

dwelling with its wisdom, not with its folly. In fact, a taste 
for the shifting literary fashions and popularities of the hour 
springs from shallowness and leads to shallowness. And to 
knit your pupils up close with old standards, is the best 
thing you can do for them, both mentally and morally. 

And I confess I like to see the young growing enthusiastic 
over the treasured wisdom and eloquence of their fore- 
fathers. This is a natural and wholesome inspiration, and 
such as the soul can hardly drink-in or catch without being 
lifted and expanded by it. Worth much for the knowledge 
it furthers, it is worth far more for the manhood it quickens. 
And I think none the worse of it, that it may do somewhat 
towards chastising down the miserable conceit now so rife 
amongst us, that light never really dawned on the world till 
about that glorious time when our eyes were first opened, 
and we began to shed our wisdom abroad. To be sure, the 
atmosphere of the past now stands impeached as being a 
very dull and sleepy atmosphere : nevertheless I rather like 
it, and think I have often found much health and comfort in 
breathing it. Some old writer tells us that " no man having 
drunk old wine straightway desireth the new ; for he saith 
the old is better." I am much of the same opinion. In 
short, old wine, old books, old friends, old songs, "the 
precious music of the heart," are the wine, the books, the 
friends, the songs for me ! 

Besides, we have quite enough of the present outside of 
the school j and one of our greatest needs at this very time 
is more of inspiration from the past. Living too much in the 
present is not good either for the mind or for the heart : 
its tendency is to steep the soul in the transient popularities 
of the hour, and to vulgarize the whole man. Not that the 
present age is worse than former ages ; it may even be better 



36 GENERAL PREFACE. 

as a whole : but what is bad or worthless in an age gener- 
ally dies with the age : so that only the great and good of 
the past touches us ; while of the present we are most touched 
by that which is little and mean. The shriekings and jab- 
berings of an age's folly almost always drown, for the time 
being, the eloquence of its wisdom : but the eloquence lives 
and speaks after the jabberings have gone silent, God's air 
refusing to propagate them. So let our youth now and then 
breathe and listen an hour or two in the old intellectual 
fatherland, where all the foul noises have long since died 
away, leaving the pure music to sound up full and clear. 



INTRO DUCTION. 



Date of the Composition. 

A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM was registered 
at the Stationers' October 8, 1600, and two quarto edi- 
tions of it were published in the course of that year. The 
play is not known to have been printed again till it reap- 
peared in the folio of 1623, where the repetition of certain 
misprints shows it to have been printed from one of the 
quarto copies. In all three of these copies, however, the 
printing is remarkably clear and correct for the time, inso- 
much that modern editors have little difficulty about the 
text. Probably none of the Poet's dramas has reached us 
in a more satisfactory state. 

The play is first heard of in the list given by Francis 
Meres in his Palladis Tamia, 1598. But it was undoubt- 
edly written several years before that time ; and I am not 
aware that any editor places the writing at a later date than 
1594. This brings it into the same period with King John, 
King Richard the Second, and the finished Romeo and Ju- 
liet; and the internal marks of style naturally sort it into 
that company. Verplanck, however, thinks there are some 
passages which relish strongly of an earlier time • while 
again there are others that with the prevailing sweetness of 
the whole have such an intertwisting of nerve and vigour, 
and such an energetic compactness of thought and imagery, 

3 



4 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 

mingled occasionally with the deeper tonings of " years that 
bring the philosophic mind," as to argue that they were 
wrought into the structure of the play not long before it came 
from the press. The part of the Athenian lovers certainly 
has a good deal that, viewed by itself, would scarce do 
credit even to such a boyhood as Shakespeare's must have 
been. On the other hand, there is a large philosophy in 
Theseus's discourse of "the lunatic, the lover, and the poet," 
a manly judgment in his reasons for preferring the " tedious 
brief scene of young Pyramus and his love Thisbe," and a 
bracing freshness in the short dialogue of the chase, all in 
the best style of the author's second period. Perhaps, how- 
ever, what seem the defects of the former, the fanciful quirks 
and far-fetched conceits, were wisely designed, in order to 
invest the part with such an air of dreaminess and unreality 
as would better sort with the scope and spirit of the piece, 
and preclude a disproportionate resentment of some naughty 
acts into which those love-bewildered frailties are betrayed. 

There is at least a rather curious coincidence, which used 
to be regarded as proving that the play was not written till 
after the Summer of 1594. I refer to Titania's superb de- 
scription, in ii. 1, of the strange misbehaviour of the weather, 
which she ascribes to the fairy bickerings. I can quote but 
a part of it : 

The seasons alter : hoary-headed frosts 

Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose ; 

And on old Heims' thin and icy crown 

An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds 

Is, as in mockery, set : the Spring, the Summer, 

The childing Autumn, angry Winter, change 

Their wonted liveries ; and the mazed world, 

By their increase, now knows not which is which : 

And this same progeny of evils comes 

From our debate, from our dissension. 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

For the other part of the coincidence, Strype in his Annals 
gives the following passage from a discourse by the Rev. 
Dr. King : " And see whether the Lord doth not threaten 
us much more, by sending such unseasonable weather and 
storms of rain among us ; which if we will observe, and 
compare it with what is past, we may say that the course 
of Nature is very much inverted. Our years are turned up- 
side down : our Summers are no Summers ; our harvests 
are no harvests ; our seed-times are no seed-times. For a 
great space of time scant any day hath been seen that it 
hath not rained." Dyce indeed scouts the supposal that 
Shakespeare had any allusion to this eccentric conduct of 
the elements in the Summer of 1594, pronouncing it "ridicu- 
lous " • but I do not quite see it so ; albeit I am apt enough 
to believe that most of the play was written before that date. 
And surely, the truth of the allusion being granted, all must 
admit that passing events have seldom been turned to better 
account in the service of poetry. 

Hardly suited to the Stage. 

I can hardly imagine this play ever to have been very 
successful on the stage ; and I am sure it could not be made 
to succeed there now. Still we are not without contempo- 
rary evidence that it had at least a fair amount of fame. 
And we have authentic information that it was performed 
at the house of Dr. John Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, on 
Sunday, the 27th of September, 1631. The actor of Bot- 
tom's part was on that occasion sentenced by a Puritan tri- 
bunal to sit twelve hours in the porter's room of the Bishop's 
palace, wearing the ass's head. This Dr. Williams was the 
very able but far from faultless man who was treated so 
harshly by Laud, and gave the King such crooked counsel 



6 a midsummer-night's dream. 

in the case of Strafford, and spent his last years in mute 
sorrow at the death of his royal master, and had his life writ- 
ten by the wise, witty, good Bishop Hacket. 

Sources of the Plot. 

• 

The Poet has been commonly supposed to have taken 
the ground- work of this play from The Knights Tale of 
Chaucer. But the play has hardly any notes of connection 
with the Tale except the mere names of Theseus, Hippolyta, 
and Philostrate, the latter of which is the name assumed by 
Arcite in the Tale. The Life of Theseus, in North's trans- 
lation of Plutarch doubtless furnished something towards the 
parts of the hero and his "bouncing Amazon " ; while Gold- 
ing's translation of Ovid's story of Pyramus and Thisbe 
probably supplied hints towards the interlude. So much as 
relates to Bottom and his fellows evidently came fresh from 
Nature as she had passed under the Poet's eye. The link- 
ing of these clowns with the ancient tragic tale of Pyramus 
and Thisbe, so as to draw the latter within the region of 
modern farce, is not less original than droll. How far 'it 
may have expressed the Poet's judgment touching the the- 
atrical doings of the time, were perhaps a question more 
curious than profitable. The names of Oberon, Titania, and 
Robin Goodfellow were made familiar by the surviving relics 
of Gothic and Druidical mythology; as were also many par- 
ticulars in their habits, mode of life, and influence in human 
affairs. Hints and allusions scattered through many pre- 
ceding writers might be produced, showing that the old 
superstition had been grafted into the body of Christianity, 
where it had shaped itself into a regular system, so as to 
mingle in the lore of the nursery, and hold an influential 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

place in the popular belief. Some reports of this ancient 
Fairydom are choicely translated into poetry by Chaucer in 
The Wife of Bath's Tale. 

General Characteristics. 

But, though Chaucer and others had spoken about the 
fairy nation, it was for Shakespeare to let them speak for 
themselves : until he clothed their life in apt forms, their 
thoughts in fitting words, they but floated unseen and un- 
heard in the mental atmosphere of his fatherland. So that 
on this point there need be no scruple about receiving Hal- 
lam's statement of the matter : " A Midsummer- Nights 
Dream is, I believe, altogether original in one of the most 
beautiful conceptions that ever visited the mind of a Poet, 
— the fairy machinery. A few before him had dealt in a 
vulgar and clumsy manner with popular superstitions ; but 
the sportive, beneficent, invisible population of the air and 
earth, long since established in the creed of childhood, 
and of those simple as children, had never for a moment 
been blended with ' human mortals ' among the personages 
of the drama." How much Shakespeare did as the friend 
and saviour of those sweet airy frolickers of the past from 
the relentless mowings of Time, has been charmingly set 
forth in our day in Hood's Plea of the Midsummer Fairies. 

What, then, are the leading qualities which the Poet 
ascribes to these ideal or fanciful beings ? Coleridge says he 
is " convinced that Shakespeare availed himself of the title 
of this play in his own mind, and worked upon it as a dream 
throughout." This remark no doubt rightly hits the true 
genius of the piece ; and on no other ground can its merits 
be duly estimated. The whole play is indeed a sort of ideal 



8 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM. 

dream ; and it is from the fairy personages that its character 
as such mainly proceeds. All the materials of the piece are 
ordered and assimilated to that central and governing idea. 
This it is that explains and justifies the distinctive features of 
the work, such as the constant preponderance of the lyrical 
over the dramatic, and the free playing of the action un- 
checked by the conditions of outward fact and reality. Ac- 
cordingly a sort of lawlessness is, as it ought to be, the very 
law of the performance. King Oberon is the sovereign who 
presides over the world of dreams ; Puck is his prime 
minister ; and all the other denizens of Fairydom are his 
subjects and the agents of his will in this capacity. Titania's 
nature and functions are precisely the same which Mercutio 
assigns to Queen Mab, whom he aptly describes as having for 
her office to deliver sleeping men's fancies of their dreams, 
those " children of an idle brain." In keeping with this 
central dream-idea, the actual order of things everywhere 
gives place to the spontaneous issues and capricious turnings 
of the dreaming mind ; the lofty and the low, the beautiful 
and the grotesque, the world of fancy and of fact, all the 
strange diversities that enter into " such stuff as dreams are 
made of," running and frisking together, and interchanging 
their functions and properties ; so that the whole seems con- 
fused, flitting, shadowy, and indistinct, as fading away in the 
remoteness and fascination of moonlight. The very scene 
is laid in a veritable dream-land, called Athens indeed, but 
only because Athens was the greatest beehive of beautiful 
visions then known ; or rather it is laid in an ideal forest 
near an ideal Athens, — a forest peopled with sportive elves 
and sprites and fairies feeding on moonlight and music and 
fragrance ; a place where Nature herself is preternatural ; 
where every thing is idealized, even to the sunbeams and the 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

soil; where the vegetation proceeds by enchantment, and 
there is magic in the germination of the seed and secretion 
of the sap. 

The Fairy People. 

The characteristic attributes of the fairy people are, per- 
haps, most availably represented in Puck ; who is apt to 
remind one of Ariel, though the two have little in common, 
save that both are preternatural, and therefore live no longer 
in the faith of reason. Puck is no such sweet- mannered, 
tender-hearted, music-breathing spirit, as Prospero's delicate 
prime-minister ; there are no such fine interweavings of a 
sensitive moral soul in his nature, he has no such soft 
touches of compassion and pious awe of goodness, as link 
the dainty Ariel in so smoothly with our best sympathies. 
Though Goodfellow by name, his powers and aptitudes for 
mischief are quite unchecked by any gentle relentings of 
fellow-feeling : in whatever distresses he finds or occasions 
he sees much to laugh at, nothing to pity : to tease and vex 
poor human sufferers, and then to think "what fools these 
mortals be," is pure fun to him. Yet, notwithstanding his 
mad pranks, we cannot choose but love the little sinner, 
and let our fancy frolic with him, his sense of the ludicrous 
is so exquisite, he is so fond of sport, and so quaint and 
merry in his mischief; while at the same time such is the 
strange web of his nature as to keep him morally innocent. 
In all which I think he answers perfectly to the best idea we 
can frame of what a little dream-god should be. 

In further explication of this peculiar people, it is to be 
noted that there is nothing of reflection or conscience or even 
of a spiritualized intelligence in their proper life : they have 
all the attributes of the merely natural and sensitive soul, 



IO A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 

but no attributes of the properly rational and moral soul. 
They worship the clean, the neat, the pretty, and the pleasant, 
whatever goes to make up the idea of purely sensuous beauty : 
this is a sort of religion with them ; whatever of conscience 
they have adheres to this : so that herein they not unfitly 
represent the wholesome old notion which places cleanliness 
next to godliness. Every thing that is trim, dainty, elegant, 
graceful, agreeable, and sweet to the senses, they delight in : 
flowers, fragrances, dewdrops, and moonbeams, honey-bees, 
butterflies, and nightingales, dancing, play, and song, — these 
are their joy ; out of these they weave their highest delecta- 
tion ; amid these they " fleet the time carelessly," without 
memory or forecast, and with no thought or aim beyond the 
passing pleasure of the moment. On the other hand, they 
have an instinctive repugnance to whatever is foul, ugly, slut- 
tish, awkward, ungainly, or misshapen : they wage unrelent- 
ing war against bats, spiders, hedgehogs, spotted snakes, 
blindworms, long-legg'd spinners, beetles, and all such dis- 
agreeable creatures : to "kill cankers in the musk-rosebuds," 
and to " keep back the clamorous owl," are regular parts of 
their business. Their intense dislike of what is ugly and 
misshapen is the reason why they so much practise " the 
legerdemain of changelings," stealing away finished, handsome 
babies, and leaving blemished and defective ones in their 
stead. For the same cause they love to pester and perse- 
cute and play shrewd tricks upon decrepit old age, wise 
aunts, and toothless, chattering gossips, and especially such 
awkward " hempen home-spuns " as Bottom and his fellow- 
actors in the Interlude. 

Thus these beings embody the ideal of the mere natural 
soul, or rather the purely sensuous fancy which shapes and 
governs the pleasing or the vexing delusions of sleep. They 



INTRODUCTION. 1 1 

lead a merry, luxurious life, given up entirely to the pleasures 
of happy sensation, — a happiness that has no moral element, 
nothing of reason or conscience in it. They are indeed a 
sort of personified dreams ; and so the Poet places them in a 
kindly or at least harmless relation to mortals as the bringers 
of dreams. Their very kingdom is located in the aromatic, 
flower-scented Indies, a land where mortals are supposed to 
live in a half-dreamy state. From thence they come, " fol- 
lowing darkness," just as dreams naturally do ; or, as Oberon 
words it, " tripping after the night's shade, swifter than the 
wandering Moon." It is their nature to shun the daylight, 
though they do not fear it, and to prefer the dark, as this is 
their appropriate worktime ; but most of all they love the 
dusk and the twilight, because this is the best dreaming-time, 
whether the dreamer be asleep or awake. And all the shift- 
ing phantom-jugglery of dreams, all the sweet soothing witch- 
eries, and all the teasing and tantalizing imagery of dream- 
land, rightly belong to their province. 

It is a very noteworthy point that all their power or 
influence over the hearts and actions of mortals works through 
the medium of dreams, or of such fancies as are most allied 
to dreams. So that their whole inner character is fashioned 
in harmony with their external function. Nor is it without 
rare felicity that the Poet assigns to them the dominion over 
the workings of sensuous and superficial love, this being but 
as one of the Courts of the dream-land kingdom ; a region 
ordered, as it were, quite apart from the proper regards of 
duty and law, and where the natural soul of man moves free 
of moral thought and responsibility. Accordingly we have 
the King of this Fairydom endowed with the rights and 
powers both of the classical god of love and the classical 
goddess of chastity. Oberon commands alike the secret 



12 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHTS DREAM. 

virtues of "Dian's bud " and of " Cupid's flower " ; and he 
seems to use them both unchecked by any other law than his 
innate love of what is handsome and fair, and his native 
aversion to what is ugly and foul ; that is, he owns no re- 
straint but as he is inwardly held to apply either or both of 
them in such a way as to avoid all distortion or perversion 
from what is naturally graceful and pleasant. For everybody, 
I take it, knows that in the intoxications of a life of sensuous 
love reason and conscience have as little force as they have 
in a life of dreams. And so the Poet fitly ascribes to Oberon 
and his ministers both Cupid's delight in frivolous breaches of 
faith and Jove's laughter at lovers' perjuries ; and this on the 
ground, apparently, that the doings of those in Cupid's power 
are as harmless and unaccountable as the freaks of a dream. 
In pursuance of this idea he depicts the fairies as beings 
without any proper moral sense in what they do, but as hav- 
ing a very keen sense of what is ludicrous and absurd in the 
doings of men. They are careless and unscrupulous in their 
dealings in this behalf. The wayward follies and the teasing 
perplexities of the fancy-smitten persons are pure sport to 
them. If by their wanton mistakes they can bewilder and 
provoke the lovers into larger outcomes of the laughable, so 
much the higher runs their mirth. And as they have no 
fellow-feeling with the pains of those who thus feed their love 
of fun, so the effect of their roguish tricks makes no impres- 
sion upon them : they have a feeling of simple delight and 
wonder at the harmless frettings and minings which their 
merry mischief has a hand in bringing to pass : but then it is 
to be observed also, that they find just as much sport in 
tricking the poor lover out of his vexations as in tricking him 
into them ; in fact, they never rest satisfied with the fun of 
the former so long as there is any chance of enjoying that of 
the latter also. 



INTRODUCTION. 1 3 



Supposed Allusions. 

All readers of Shakespeare are of course familiar with 
the splendid passage in ii. 1, where Oberon describes to 
Puck how, on a certain occasion, 

I heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back, 
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, 
That the rude sea grew civil at her song. 

And all are no doubt aware that the subsequent lines, refer- 
ring to " a fair vestal throned by the West," are commonly 
understood to have been meant as a piece of delicate flattery 
to Queen Elizabeth. Mr. Halpin has recently given to this 
famous passage a new interpretation or application, which is 
at least curious enough to justify a brief statement of it. In 
his view, " Cupid all arm'd " refers to Leicester's wooing of 
Elizabeth, and his grand entertainment of her at Kenilworth 
in 1575. From authentic descriptions of that entertainment 
we learn, that among the spectacles and fireworks witnessed 
on the occasion was one of a singing mermaid on a dolphin's 
back gliding over smooth water amid shooting stars. The 
"love-shaft" which was aimed at the "fair vestal," that is, 
the Priestess of Diana, whose bud has such prevailing might 
over "Cupid's flower," glanced off; so that "the imperial 
votaress passed on, in maiden meditation, fancy-free." 

Thus far, all is clear enough. But Halpin further inter- 
prets that the " little western flower " upon whom " the bolt 
of Cupid fell " refers to Lettice, Countess of Essex, with 
whom Leicester carried on a secret intrigue while her hus- 
band was absent in Ireland. The Earl of Essex, on being 
apprised of the intrigue, set out to return the next year, but 
died, of poison, as was thought, before he reached home. So 



14 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHTS DREAM. 

Halpin understands the " western flower, before milk-white," 
that is, innocent, but "now purple with love's wound," as 
referring to the lady's fall, or to the deeper blush of her hus- 
band's murder. And the flower is called "love-in-idleness," 
to signify her listlessness of heart during the Earl's absence ; 
as the Poet elsewhere uses similar terms of the pansy, as 
denoting the love that renders men pensive, dreamy, indo-. 
lent, instead of toning up the soul with healthy and noble 
aspirations. The words of Oberon to Puck, " that very time 
I saw — but thou couldst not," are construed as referring to 
the strict mystery in which the affair was wrapped, and to 
the Poet's own knowledge of it, because a few years later the 
execution of Edward Arden, his maternal relative, was closely 
connected with it, and because the unfortunate Earl of 
Essex, so well known as for some time the Queen's favourite, 
and then the victim of her resentment, was the son of that 
Lettice, and was also the Poet's early friend and patron. 

Such is, in substance, Halpin's view of the matter ; which 
I give for what it may be worth ; and freely acknowledge it 
to be ingenious and plausible enough. Gervinus regards it as 
" an interpretation full of spirit," and as " giving the most 
definite relation to the innermost sense of the whole piece." 
And I am very willing to believe that Shakespeare often took 
hints, perhaps something more than hints, for his poetry from 
the facts and doings of the time : nevertheless I rather fail to 
see how any real good is to be gained towards understanding 
the Poet from such interpretations of his scenes, or from 
tracing out such "definite relations" between his workman- 
ship and the persons and particulars that may have come 
to his knowledge. For my own part, I doubt whether "the 
innermost sense " of the play is any the clearer to me for 
this ingenious piece of explanation. 



INTRODUCTION. 1 5 

Besides, I have yet to learn what proofs there are that the 
ill-fated Essex was an early patron and friend of Shake- 
speare. That great honour belongs to the Earls of South- 
ampton and Pembroke. It was Lord Bacon, not Shake- 
speare, who enjoyed so richly the friendship and patronage 
of the generous Essex ; and how he requited the same is 
known much too well for his credit. I am not unmindful 
that this may yield some comfort to those who would per- 
suade us that Shakespeare's plays were written by Lord 
Bacon. Upon this point I have just four things to say : 
First, Bacon's requital of the Earl's bounty was such a piece 
of ingratitude as I can hardly conceive the author of King 
Lear to have been guilty of : Second, the author of Shake- 
speare's plays, whoever he may have been, certainly was not 
a scholar ; he had indeed something vastly better than 
learning, but he had not that : Third, Shakespeare never 
philosophizes, Bacon never does any thing else : Fourth, 
Bacon's mind, great as it was, might have been cut out of 
Shakespeare's without being missed. 

The Human Mortals. 

Any very firm or strong delineation of character, any deep 
passion, earnest purpose, or working of powerful motives, 
would clearly go at odds with the spirit of such a performance 
as I have described this play to be. It has room but for 
love and beauty and delight, for whatever is most poetical in 
nature and fancy, and for such tranquil stirrings of thought 
and feeling as may flow out in musical expression. Any such 
tuggings of mind or heart as would ruffle and discompose the 
smoothness of lyrical division would be quite out of keeping 
in a course of dream-life. The characters here, accordingly, 



16 A midsummer-night's dream. 

are drawn with light, delicate, vanishing touches ; some of 
them being dreamy and sentimental, some gay and frolic- 
some, and others replete with amusing absurdities, while all 
are alike dipped in fancy or sprinkled with humour. And 
for the same reason the tender distresses of unrequited or 
forsaken love here touch not our moral sense at all, but only 
at the most our human sympathies ; love itself being repre- 
sented as but the effect of some visual enchantment, which 
the King of Fairydom can inspire, suspend, or reverse at 
pleasure. Even the heroic personages are fitly shown in an 
unheroic aspect : we see them but in their unbendings, when 
they have daffed their martial robes aside, to lead the train 
of day-dreamers, and have a nuptial jubilee. In their case, 
great care and art were required, to make the play what it has 
been blamed for being ; that is, to keep the dramatic suffi- 
ciently under, and lest the law of a part should override the 
law of the whole. 

Interplay of the Comic and the Poetical. 

So, likewise, in the transformation of Bottom and the 
dotage of Titania, all the resources of fancy were needed, to 
prevent the unpoetical from getting the upper hand, and thus 
swamping the genius of the piece. As it is, what words can 
fitly express the effect with which the extremes of the gro- 
tesque and the beautiful are here brought together? What 
an inward quiet laughter springs up and lubricates the fancy 
at Bottom's droll confusion of his two natures, when he talks, 
now as an ass, now as a man, and anon as a mixture of both ; 
his thoughts running at the same time on honey-bags and 
thistles, the charms of music and of good dry oats ! Who 
but Shakespeare or Nature could have so interfused the lyri- 



INTRODUCTION. 1 7 

cal spirit, not only with, but into and through a series or 
cluster of the most irregular and fantastic drolleries? But 
indeed this embracing and kissing of the most ludicrous and 
the most poetical, the enchantment under which they meet, 
and the airy, dream-like grace that hovers over their union, 
are altogether inimitable and indescribable. In this singular 
wedlock, the very diversity of the elements seems to link 
them the closer, while this linking in turn heightens that 
diversity ; Titania being thereby drawn on to finer issues of 
soul, and Bottom to larger expressions of stomach. The 
union is so very improbable as to seem quite natural : we can- 
not conceive how any thing but a dream could possibly have 
married things so contrary ; and that they could not have 
come together save in a dream, is a sort of proof that they 
were dreamed together. 

And so, throughout, the execution is in strict accordance 
with the plan. The play, from beginning to end, is a per- 
fect festival of whatever dainties and delicacies poetry may 
command, — a continued revelry and jollification of soul, 
where the understanding is lulled asleep, that the fancy may 
run riot in unrestrained enjoyment. The bringing togethei 
of four parts so dissimilar as those of the Duke and his war- 
rior Bride, of the Athenian ladies and their lovers, of the 
amateur players and their woodland rehearsal, and of the 
fairy bickerings and overreaching ; and the carrying of them 
severally to a point where they all meet and blend in lyrical 
respondence ; all this is done in the same freedom from the 
laws that govern the drama of character and life. Each 
group of persons is made to parody itself into concert with 
the others ; while the frequent intershootings of fairy influ- 
ence lift the whole into the softest regions of fancy. At last 
the Interlude comes in as an amusing burlesque on all that 



1 8 a midsummer-night's dream. 

has gone before ; as in our troubled dreams we sometimes 
end with a dream that we have been dreaming, and our per- 
turbations sink to rest in the sweet assurance that they were 
but the phantoms and unrealities of a busy sleep. 

The Delineation of Theseus. 

Though, as I have already implied, the characterization 
is here quite secondary and subordinate, yet the play prob- 
ably has as much of character as were compatible with so 
much of poetry. Theseus has been well described as a 
classic personage with romantic features and expression. 
The name is Greek, but the nature and spirit are essentially 
Gothic. Nor does the abundance of classical allusion and 
imagery in the story call for any qualification here ; because 
whatsoever is taken is thoroughly steeped in the efficacy of 
the taker. This sort of anachronism, common to all mod- 
ern writers before and during the age of Shakespeare, seems 
to have arisen in part from a comparative dearth of classical 
learning, which left men to contemplate the heroes of an- 
tiquity under the forms into which their own mind and 
manners had been cast. Thus their delineations became 
informed with the genius of romance ; the condensed grace 
of ancient character giving way to the enlargement of 
chivalrous magnanimity and honour, with its " high-erected 
thoughts seated in the heart of courtesy." Such in Shake- 
speare's case appears to have been the no less beautiful than 
natural result of the small learning, so often smiled and 
sometimes barked at, by those more skilled in the ancient 
languages than in the mother-tongue of nature. 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

The Lovers. 

In the two pairs of lovers there are hardly any lines deep 
and firm enough to be rightly called characteristic. Their 
doings, even more than those of the other human persons, 
are marked by the dream-like freakishness and whimsicality 
which distinguish the piece. Perhaps the two ladies are 
slightly discriminated as individuals, in that Hermia, besides 
her brevity of person, is the more tart in temper, and the 
more pert and shrewish of speech, while Helena is of a 
rather milder and softer disposition, with less of confidence 
in herself. So too in the case of Demetrius and Lysander 
the lines of individuality are exceedingly faint ; the former 
being perhaps a shade the more caustic and spiteful, and the 
latter somewhat the more open and candid. But there is 
really nothing of heart or soul in what any of them do : as 
we see them, they are not actuated by principle at all, or 
even by any thing striking so deep as motive : their conduct 
issues from the more superficial springs of capricious im- 
pulse and fancy, the "jugglery of the senses during the 
sleep of reason " ; the higher forces of a mental and moral 
bearing having no hand in shaping their action. For the 
fairy influences do not reach so far as to the proper seat 
of motive and principle : they have but the skin-depth of 
amorous caprice ; all the elements of character and all the 
vital springs of faith and loyalty and honour lying quite be- 
yond their sphere. Even here the judgment or the genius 
of the Poet is very perceptible ; the lovers being represented 
from the start as acting from no forces or inspirations too 
deep or strong for the powers of Fairydom to overcome. 
Thus the pre-condition of the two pairs in their whim-bewil- 
derment is duly attempered to the purposed dream-play of 



20 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 

the general action. Nor is the seeming stanchness of Her- 
mia and Demetrius in the outset any exception to this view \ 
for nothing is more wilful and obstinate than amorous caprice 
or skin-deep love during its brief tenure of the fancy. 

Bottom the "Weaver. 

Of all the characters in this play, Bottom descends by far 
the most into the realities of common experience, and is 
therefore much the most accessible to the grasp of prosaic 
and critical fingers. It has been thought that the Poet 
meant him as a satire on the envies and jealousies of the 
greenroom, as they had fallen under his keen yet kindly eye. 
But, surely, the qualities uppermost in Bottom the Weaver 
had forced themselves on his notice long before he entered 
the greenroom. It is indeed curious to observe the solici- 
tude of this protean actor and critic, that all the parts of the 
forthcoming play may have the benefit of his execution ; 
how great is his concern lest, if he be tied to one, the others 
may be " overdone or come tardy of" ; and how he would 
fain engross them all to himself, to the end of course that all 
may succeed, to the honour of the stage and the pleasure of 
the spectators. But Bottom's metamorphosis is the most 
potent drawer-out of his genius. The sense of his new 
head-dress stirs up all the manhood within him, and lifts 
his character into ludicrous greatness at once. Hitherto the 
seeming to be a man has made him content to be little 
better than an ass ; but no sooner is he conscious of seem- 
ing an ass than he tries his best to be a. man ; while all his 
efforts that way only go to approve the fitness of his present 
seeming to his former being. 

Schlegel happily remarks, that " the droll wonder of Bot- 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

tom's metamorphosis is merely the translation of a metaphor 
in its literal sense." The turning of a figure of speech thus 
into visible form is a thing only to be thought of or im- 
agined ; so that probably no attempt to paint or represent 
it to the senses can ever succeed. We can bear — at least 
we often have to bear — that a man should seem an ass to 
the mind's eye ; but that he should seem such to the eye of 
the body is rather too much, save as it is done in those 
fable-pictures which have long been among the playthings 
of the nursery. So a child, for instance, takes great pleas- 
ure in fancying the stick he is riding to be a horse, when he 
would be frightened out of his wits, were the stick to quicken 
and expand into an actual horse. In like manner we often 
delight in indulging fancies and giving names, when we 
should be shocked were our fancies to harden into facts : 
we enjoy visions in our sleep, that would only disgust or 
terrify us, should we awake and find them solidified into 
things. The effect of Bottom's transformation can hardly 
be much otherwise, if set forth in visible, animated shape. 
Delightful to think of, it is scarce tolerable to look upon : 
exquisitely true in idea, it has no truth, or even verisimilitude, 
when reduced to fact ; so that, however gladly imagination 
receives it, sense and understanding revolt at it. 

Concluding" Remarks. 

Partly for reasons already stated, and partly for others 
that I scarce know how to state, A Midsummer- Nigh fs 
Dream is a most effectual poser to criticism. Besides that 
its very essence is irregularity, so that it cannot be fairly 
brought to the test of rules, the play forms properly a class 
by itself : literature has nothing else really like it ; nothing 



22 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 

therefore with which it may be compared, and its merits 
adjusted. For so the Poet has here exercised powers ap- 
parently differing even in kind, not only from those of any 
other writer, but from those displayed in any other of his 
own writings. Elsewhere, if his characters are penetrated 
with the ideal, their whereabout lies in the actual, and the 
work may in some measure be judged by that life which 
it claims to represent : here the whereabout is as ideal as 
the characters ; all is in the land of dreams, — a place for 
dreamers, not for critics. For who can tell what a dream 
ought or ought not to be, or when the natural conditions 
of dream-life are or are not rightly observed? How can 
the laws of time and space, as involved in the transpiration 
of human character, — how can these be applied in a place 
where the mind is thus absolved from their proper jurisdic- 
tion ? Besides, the whole thing swarms with enchantment ■ 
all the sweet witchery of Shakespeare's sweet genius is con- 
centrated in it, yet disposed with so subtle and cunning a 
hand, that we can as little grasp it as get away from it : its 
charms, like those of a summer evening, are such as we may 
see and feel, but cannot locate or define ; cannot say they 
are here, or they are there : the moment we yield ourselves 
up to them, they seem to be everywhere ; the moment we 
go to master them, they seem to be nowhere. 



A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



in love with Hennia. 



Theseus, Duke of Athens, 

EGEUS, Father to Hermia. 

Lysander, ) 

Demetrius,} 

Philostrate, Master of the Revels 

to Theseus. 
Quince, a Carpenter. 
Snug, a Joiner. 
Bottom, a Weaver. 
Flute, a Bellows-mender. 
SNOUT, a Tinker. 
Starveling, a Tailor. 



Oberon, King of the Fairies. 
Titan I A, Queen of the Fairies. 
Puck, or Robin-goodfellow, a 

Fairy. 
Peas-blossom, ^ 
Cobweb, 
Moth, 
Mustard-seed. 



Fairies. 



Pyramus, 

Thisbe, 

Wall, 

Moonshine, 

Lion, 



Characters in the In- 
terlude. 



Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons 
Hermia, in love with Lysander. 
Helena, in love with Demetrius. 
Other Fairies attending their King and Queen, 
and Hippolyta. 
SCENE. — Athens, and a Wood near it. 



Attendants on Theseus 



ACT I. 

Scene I. — Athens. A Room in the Palace 4/" Theseus. 

Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, Philostrate, and Attendants. 

The. Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour 
Draws on apace ; four "happy days bring in 
Another Moon : but, O, methinks, how slow 



23 



24 A midsummer-night's DREAM. act l 

This old Moon wanes ! she lingers my desires, 

Like to a step-dame, or a dowager, 1 

Long withering out a young man's revenue. 

Hip. Four days will quickly steep themselves in nights ; 
Four nights will quickly dream away the time ; 
And then the Moon, like to a silver bow 
New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night 
Of our solemnities. 

The. Go, Philostrate, 

Stir up th' Athenian youth to merriments ; 
Awake the pert 2 and nimble spirit of mirth : 
Turn melancholy forth to funerals, — 

The pale companion is not for our pomp. — [^//Philostrate. 
Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword, 
And won thy love, doing thee injuries ; 
But I will wed thee in another key, 
With pomp, with triumph, 3 and with revelling. 

Enter Egeus, Hermia, Lysander, and Demetrius. 

Ege. Happy be Theseus, our renowned Duke ! 4 

The. Thanks, good Egeus : what's the news with thee ? 

Ege. Full of vexation come I, with complaint 



1 A dowager is a widow with rights of dower, that is, with a portion of her 
husband's property secured to her by law. Of course, so long as she lives, 
a part of the inheritance is withheld from the children, whose revenue is 
said to be withered out, because their youth gets withered while they are 
waiting for it. 

2 Pert had not always the ill meaning now attached to it. Skinner de- 
rives it from the Latin peritus, which means expert, skilful, prompt. 

3 Triumph was used in a much more inclusive sense than it now bears; 
for various kinds of festive or public display ox pageantry. 

4 The application of duke to the heroes of antiquity was quite common ; 
the word being from the Latin dux, which means a chief or leader of any 
sort. Thus in i Chronicles, i. 51, we have a list of " the dukes of Edom." 



25 



SCENE I. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 

Against my child, my daughter Hermia. — 

Stand forth, Demetrius. — My noble lord, 

This man hath my consent to marry her. — 

Stand forth, Lysander : — and, my gracious Duke, 

This man hath witch'd the bosom of my child : — 

Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes, 

And interchanged love-tokens with my child : 

Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung, 

With feigning voice, verses of feigning love ; 5 

And stol'n th' impression of her fantasy 

With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gauds, conceits, 

Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats, — messengers 

Of strong prevailment in unharden'd youth : 

With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's heart ; 

Turn'd her obedience, which is due to me, 

To stubborn harshness : — and, my gracious Duke, 

Be't so she will not here before your Grace 

Consent to marry with Demetrius, 

I beg the ancient privilege of Athens, — 

As she is mine, I may dispose of her : 

Which shall be either to this gentleman 

Or to her death, according to our law 

Immediately provided in that case. 

The. What say you, Hermia ? be advised, 6 fair maid : 
To you your father should be as a god \ 
One that composed your beauties ; yea, and one 
To whom you are but as a form in wax, 

5 According to present usage, this should be "verses of feigned love." 
Probably it is but an instance of the indifferent use of the active and passive 
forms so common in the Poet's time. So we have discontenting for discon- 
tented, and all-obeying for all-obeyed. 

6 Be advised is old language for bethink yourself; that is, deliberate or 
consider. Very often so in Shakespeare. 



26 a midsummer-night's DREAM. ACT I. 

By him imprinted, and within his power 
To leave the figure, or disfigure it. 7 
Demetrius is a worthy gentleman. 

Her. So is Lysander. 

The. In himself he is ; 

But in this kind, wanting your father's voice, 
The other must be held the worthier. 

Her. I would my father look'd but with my eyes. 

The. Rather your eyes must with his judgment look. 

Her. I do entreat your Grace to pardon me. 
I know not by what power I am made bold, 
Nor how it may concern my modesty, 
In such a presence here to plead my thoughts ; 
But I beseech your Grace that I may know 
The worst that may befall me in this case, 
If I refuse to wed Demetrius. 

The. Either to die the death, or to abjure 
For ever the society of men. 
Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires ; 
Know of your youth, examine well your blood, 8 
Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice, 
You can endure the livery of i nun ; 
For aye to be in shady cloister mew'd, 9 
To live a barren sister all your life, 
Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless Moon. 
Thrice-blessed they that master so their blood, 

7 The language is something odd and obscure ; but the meaning ap- 
pears to be, " It is in his power either to let the form remain as it is, that is, 
to leave it undefaced, or to destroy it altogether." In the Poet's earlier 
period, such jingles as figure and disfigure were too much affected by him. 

8 Blood was continually put for passions, impulses, and affections. 

9 To mew was a term in falconry ; a mew being a cage or coop in which 
hawks were confined during the season of moulting. 



SCENE I. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 2? 

To undergo such maiden pilgrimage ; 
But earthlier- happy 10 is the rose distill'd 
Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn, 
Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness. 

Her. So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord, 
Ere I will yield my virgin patent up 
Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke 
My soul consents not to give sovereignty. 11 

The. Take time to pause ; and, by the next new Moon, — 
The sealing-day betwixt my love and me, 
For everlasting bond of fellowship, — 
Upon that day either prepare to die 
For disobedience to your father's will, 
Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would ; 
Or on Diana's altar to protest 
For aye austerity and single life. 

Dem. Relent, sweet Hermia : — and, Lysander, yield 
Thy crazed title to my certain right. 

Lys. You have her father's love, Demetrius ; 
Let me have Hermia's : do you marry him. 

Ege. Scornful Lysander ! true, he hath my love, 
And what is mine my love shall render him ; 
And she is mine, and all my right of her 
I do estate unto Demetrius. 

Lys. I am, my lord, as well derived as he, 
As well possess'd ; my love is more than his ; 
My fortunes every way as fairly rank'd — 
If not with vantage — as Demetrius' ; 

10 The meaning probably is, " happy in a more earthly and perishable 
kind of happiness." 

11 Lordship here means dominion or government ; and give is used with 
two accusatives,^^ and sovereignty. 



28 a midsummer-night's dream. ACT I. 

And, which is more than all these boasts can be, 

I am beloved of beauteous Hermia : 

Why should not I, then, prosecute my right? • 

Demetrius, I'll avouch it to his head, 

Made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena, 

And won her soul ; and she, sweet lady, dotes, 

Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry, 

Upon this spotted 12 and inconstant man. 

The. I must confess that I have heard so much, 
And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof; 
But, being over-full of self-affairs, 
My mind did lose it. — But, Demetrius, come; 
And come, Egeus ; you shall go with me, 
I have some private schooling for you both. — 
For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself 
To fit your fancies to your father's will ; 
Or else the law of Athens yields you up — 
Which by no means we may extenuate — 
To death, or to a vow of single life. — 
Come, my Hippolyta : what cheer, my love? — 
Demetrius, and Egeus, go along : 
I must employ you in some business 13 
Against our nuptial ; and confer with you 
Of something nearly that concerns yourselves. 

Ege. With duty and desire we follow you. 

\_Exeit?it Thes., Hip., Ege., Dem., and Train. 

Lys. How now, my love ! why is your cheek so pale ? 
How chance the roses there do fade so fast ? 

Her. Belike for want of rain, which I could well 

12 Spotted for wicked ox false, the opposite of spotless. So in Cavendish's 
Metrical Visions : " Spotted with pride, viciousness, and cruelty." 

13 Here, as in many other places, business is a trisyllable. 



SCENE I. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 29 

Beteem 14 them from the tempest of mine eyes. 

Lys. Ah me ! for aught that ever I could read, 
Could ever hear by tale or history, 
The course of true love never did run smooth ; 
But, either it was different in blood, — 

Her. O cross ! too high to be enthrall'd to low ! 

Lys. Or else misgraffed in respect of years, — 

Her. O spite ! too old to be engaged to young ! 

Lys. Or else it stood upon the choice of friends, — 

Her. O Hell ! to choose love by another's eyes ! 

Lys. Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, 
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it, 
Making it momentany 15 as a sound, 
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream ; 
Brief as the lightning in the collied 16 night, 
That, in a spleen, 17 unfolds both heaven and earth, 
And, ere a man hath power to say, Behold / 
The jaws of darkness do devour it up : 
So quick bright things come to confusion. 

Her. If, then, true lovers have been ever cross'd, 
It stands as an edict in destiny : 



14 Beteem here clearly has the sense of allow or permit ; as in Hamlet, i. 
2 : "So loving to my mother, that he might not beteem the winds of heaven 
visit her face too roughly." 

15 Momentany is an old form of mome7itary. 

16 Smutted or black; a word derived from the collieries. 

17 Spleen for a fit of 'passion or violence, because the spleen was supposed 
to be the special seat of eruptive or explosive emotions. So in King John, 
ii. 1 : 

This union shall do more than battery can 
To our fast-closed gates ; for, at this match, 
With swifter spleen than powder can enforce, 
The mouth of passage shall we fling wide ope, 
And give you entrance. 



30 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. ACT L 

Then let us teach our trial patience, 18 

Because it is a customary cross, 

As due to love as thoughts, and dreams, and sighs, 

Wishes, and tears, poor fancy's 19 followers. 

Lys. A good persuasion ; therefore, hear me, Hermia. 
I have a widow aunt, a dowager 
Of great revenue, 20 and she hath no child ; 
And she respects 21 me as her only son. 
From Athens is her house remote seven leagues : 
There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee ; 
And to that place the sharp Athenian law 
Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me, then, 
Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night ; 
And in the wood, a league without the town, 
Where I did meet thee once with Helena, 
To do observance to a morn of May, 22 
There will I stay for thee. 

18 The old poets very often make two syllables where modern usage 
allows but one. So, here, patience is properly a trisyllable. Various other 
words ending in -ience are sometimes used thus by Shakespeare; as also 
many words ending in -ion, -ian, and -ions. So it is with confusion, third 
line above. 

19 The Poet often uses fancy for love. So, afterwards, in this play : " Fair 
Helena in fancy following me." And in the celebrated passage applied to 
Queen Elizabeth: "In maiden meditation fancy-free." 

20 This word has occurred once before, but with the accent on the first 
syllable: here the accent is on the second syllable, as it ought to be. 
Shakespeare has it repeatedly in both ways : all the other English poets, 
I think, used it as in this place; at least so I have marked it in Spenser, 
Daniel, Dryden, Young, and Thomson. I have not met with the word in 
Milton's poetry, or in Wordsworth's. 

21 To respect in the sense of to regard ; the two words being formerly 
used as equivalent expressions. 

22 This refers to the old English custom of observing May-day, as it was 
called, with a frolic in the fields and woods. Stowe, the chronicler, tells us 
how our ancestors were wont to go out into " the sweet meadows and green 



SCENE I. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHTS DREAM. 3 1 

Her. My good Lysander ! 

I swear to thee,, by Cupid's strongest bow ; 
By his best arrow with the golden head, — 
By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves ; 
By the simplicity of Venus' doves ; 
And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage queen, 
When the false Trojan under sail was seen ; 
By all the vows that ever men have broke, 
In number more than ever women spoke ; — 
In that same place thou hast appointed me, 
To-morrow truly will I meet with thee. 

Lys. Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena. 

Enter Helena. 

Her. God speed fair Helena ! whither away ? N^ V 
Hel. Call you me fair? thai fair again unsay. 
Demetrius loves your fair : O happy fair ! 23 
Your eyes are lode-stars ; 24 and your tongue's sweet air 
More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear, 

woods, there to rejoice their spirits with the beauty and savour of sweet 
flowers, and with the harmony of birds praising God in their kind." The 
celebration of May-day in this manner was a favourite theme with the old 
poets from Chaucer downwards. Wordsworth sings it charmingly in his 
two Odes to May ; one stanza of which I must add : 

Time was, blest Power ! when youths and maids 

At peep of dawn would rise 
And wander forth, in forest glades 

Thy birth to solemnize. 
Though mute the song, — to grace the rite 

Untouch'd the hawthorn bough, 
Thy Spirit triumphs o'er the slight; 
Man changes, but not thou. 

28 Fair for fairness or beauty ; a common usage of the time. 
24 The lode-star is the leading or guiding star; that is, the polar star. 
The magnet is for the same reason called the lode-stone. 




32 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. ACT I. 

When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear. 

Sickness is catching : O, were favour 25 so, 

Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go ; 

My hair should catch your hair, my eye your eye, 

My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody. 

Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated, 

The rest I'd give, to be to you translated. 

O, teach me how you look ; and with what art 

You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart ! 

Her. I frown upon him, yet he loves me still. 

Hel. O, that your frowns would teach my smiles such 
skill ! — T" 

Her. I give him curses, yet he gives me love. 

Hel. O, that my prayers could such affection move ! 

Her. The more I hate, the more he follows me. 

Hel. The more I love, the more he hateth me. 

Her. His folly, Helen, is no fault of mine. 

Hel. None but your beauty's : would that fault were mine ! 

Her. Take comfort : he no more shall see my face j 
Ly sander and myself will fly this place. 
Before the time I did Lysander see, 
Seem'd Athens as a paradise to me : 
O, then, what graces in my love do dwell, 
That he hath turned a heaven into a hell ! 

Lys. Helen, to you our minds we will unfold : 
To-morrow night, when Phcebe doth behold 
Her silver visage in the watery glass, 
Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass, — 
A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal, — 
Through Athens' gates have we devised to steal. 

25 Favour here has reference to the general aspect, and means about the 
same as looks ox personal appearance. Repeatedly so. 



SCENE I. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S "DREAM. 33 

Her. And in the wood, where often you and I 
Upon faint primrose-beds were wont to lie, 
Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet, 
There my Lysander and myself shall meet ; 
And thence from Athens turn away our eyes, 
To seek new friends and stranger companies. 26 
Farewell, sweet playfellow : pray thou for us ; 
And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius ! — 
Keep word, Lysander : we must starve our sight 
From lovers' food till morrow deep midnight. 

Lys. I will, my Hermia. — [Exit Herm 

Helena, adieu : 
As you on him, Demetrius dote on you ! [Exit 

He/. How happy some o'er other-some can be ! 
Through Athens I am thought as fair as she. 
But what of that ? Demetrius thinks not so ; 
He will not know what all but he do know : 
And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes, 
So I, admiring of his qualities. 
Things base and vile, holding no quantity, 27 
Love can transpose to form and dignity : 
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind ; 
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind : 
Nor hath love's mind of any judgment taste ; 
Wings, and no eyes, figure unheedy haste : 
And therefore is Love said to be a child, 
Because in choice he is so oft beguiled. 

26 Companies for companions. So in King Henry V., i. 1. : " His compa- 
nies unletter'd, rude, and shallow." 

27 Here quantity appears to have the sense of strength, virtue, or efficacy, 
A like use of the word occurs in Hamlet, iii. 4 : " Sense to ecstacy was Tie'ei 
so thrall'd, but it reserved some quantity of choice, to serve in such a differ 
ence." 



34 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. ACT I. 

As waggish boys in game themselves forswear, 
So the boy Love is perjured everwhere : 
For, ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne, 28 
He hail'd down oaths that he was only mine ; 
And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt, 
So he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt. 
I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight : 
Then to the wood will he to-morrow night 
Pursue her ; and for this intelligence 
If I have thanks, it is a dear expense : ~ 9 
But herein mean I to enrich my pain, 
^o have his sight thither and back again. \y [Exit. 




Scene II. — The Same. A Room in Quince's House. 

Enter Quince, Snug, Bottom, Flute, Snout, and Starve- 
ling. 

Quifi. Is all our company here ? 

Bot. You were best to call them generally, man by man, 
according to the scrip. 1 

Quin. Here is the scroll of every man's name, which is 
thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude be- 
fore the Duke and the Duchess on his wedding-day at night. 

Bot. First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on ; 
then read the names of the actors j and so grow to a point. 

28 Eyne, for eye or eyes, was often used by the poets whenever that sound 
was wanted for the rhyme. 

29 The force and fitness of expense, here, are partly shown by pain in the 
next line. Staunton aptly notes that, as, to gratify Demetrius with this in- 
telligence, " she makes a most painful sacrifice of her feelings, his thanks, 
even if obtained, are dearly bought." 

1 Scrip, from scriptum, is writing ; the scroll mentioned just below. 



SCENE II, A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 35 

Quin. Marry, our play is The most lamentable Comedy 
and most cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisbe? 

Bot. A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a 
merry. — Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by 
the scroll. — Masters, spread yourselves. 

Quin. Answer as I call you. — Nick Bottom the weaver. 
Bot. Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed. 
Quin. You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus. 
Bot. What is Pyramus ? a lover, or a tyrant ? 
Quin. A lover, that kills himself most gallantly for love. 
Bot. That will ask some tears in the true performing of 
it : if I do it, let the audience look to their eyes ; I will move 
storms, I will condole in some measure. To the rest. — Yet 
my chief humour is for a tyrant : I could play Ercles rarely, 
or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split. 3 
The raging rocks 
And shivering shocks 
Shall break the locks 

Of prison-gates ; 
And Phibbus 1 car 
Shall shine from far, 
And make and mar 
The foolish Fates. 

2 Probably a burlesque upon the titles of some of the old dramas. 

3 Ercles is Bottom's version of Hercules. Hercules was one of the rant- 
ers and roarers of the old moral-plays ; and his Twelve Labours formed a 
popular subject of entertainment. In Greene's Groatsworth of Wit, 1592, 
a player tells how he had " terribly thundered " the Twelve Labours of 
Hercules. In Histriomastix , 1610, some soldiers drag in a company of 
players ; and the captain says to one of them, " Sirrah, this is you that 
would rend and tear a cat upon the stage." And in The Roaring Girl, 
1611, one of the persons is called Tcj.r-^at. The phrase to make all split is 
met with repeatedly. So in Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady, ii. 3 : 
" Two roaring boys of Rome, that made all split:' Also in The Widows 



$6 a midsummer-night's DREAM. ACT I. 

This was lofty ! — Now name the rest of the players. — This 
is Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein • a lover's is more condoling. 

Quin. Francis Flute the bellows-mender. 

Flu. Here, Peter Quince. 

Quin. You must take Thisbe on you. 

Flu. What is Thisbe ? a wandering knight ? 

Quin. It is the lady that Pyramus must love. 

Flu. Nay, faith, let not me play a woman ; I have a beard 
coming. 

Quin. That's all one : you shall play it in a mask, and you 
may speak as small as you will. 4 

Bot. An I may hide my face, let me play Thisbe too : I'll 
speak in a monstrous little voice ; — Thisne, Thisne, — Ah, 
Pyramus, my lover dear! thy Thisbe dear, and lady dear! 

Quin. No, no; you must play Pyramus: — and, Flute, 
you Thisbe. 

Bot. Well, proceed. 

Quin. Robin Starveling the tailor. 

Star. Here, Peter Quince. 

Quin. Robin Starveling, you must play Thisbe 's mother. 
— Tom Snout the tinker. 

Snout. Here, Peter Quince. 

Quin. You, Pyramus' father; myself, Thisbe 's father; — 
Snug the joiner, you, the lion's part : — and, I hope, here is a 
play fitted. 

Snug. Have you the lion's part written? pray you, if it 
be, give it me, for I am slow of study. 

Tears, by Chapman, i. 4: "Her wit I must employ upon this business to 
prepare my next encounter, but in such a fashion as shall make all split." 

4 In The Merry Wives, i. 1, Slender says of Anne Page, " She has brown 
hair, and speaks small hke a woi'/iam ' This speech of Peter Quince's shows, 
what is known 'rom other sources, that the parts of women were used to be 
played by boys, or, if these could not be had, by men in masks. 



SCENE II. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 37 

Quin. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but 
roaring. 

Bot. Let me play the lion too : I will roar, that I will do 
any man's heart good to hear me ; I will roar, that I will 
make the Duke say, Let him roar again, let him roar again. 

Quin. An 5 you should do it too terribly, you would fright 
the Duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek ; and that 
were enough to hang us all. 

AIL That would hang us, every mother's son. 

Bot. I grant you, friends, if that you should fright the 
ladies out of their wits, they would have no more discretion 
but to hang us : but I will aggravate my voice so, that I will 
roar you as gently as any sucking dove ; I will roar you an 
'twere any nightingale. 

Quin. You can play no part but Pyramus ; for Pyramus 
is a sweet-faced man ; a proper 6 man as one shall see in a 
Summer's day ; a most lovely, gentleman-like man : therefore 
you must needs play Pyramus. 

Bot. Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best 
to play it in? 

Quin. Why, what you will. 

Bot. I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard, 
your orange-tawny beard, your purple -in-grain beard, or your 
French- crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow. 7 

Quin. Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, 
and then you will play barefaced. 8 — But, masters, here are 

5 An is an old colloquial equivalent for if So the Poet uses, indiffer- 
ently, an, or if, or both together, an if And so in the common phrase, 
" without any ifs or ans." 

6 Proper is handsome ox fine-looking. Commonly so in Shakespeare. 

7 It seems to have been a custom to stain or dye the beard. So Ben 
Jonson in The Alchemist: " He has dyed his beard and all." 

8 An allusion to the baldness attendant upon a particular stage of what 
was then termed the French disease. 



38 a midsummer-night's DREAM. act ih 

your parts : and I am to entreat you, request you, and desire 
you, to con them by to-morrow night ; and meet me in the 
palace-wood, a mile without the town, by moonlight : there 
will we rehearse ; for if we meet in the city, we shall be 
dogg'd with company, and our devices known. In the mean 
time I will draw a bill of properties, 9 such as our play wants. 
I pray you, fail me not. 

Bot. We will meet ; and there we may rehearse more 
obscenely and courageously. 

Quin. Take pains ; be perfect : adieu. At the Duke's 
oak we meet. 

Bot. Enough ; hold, or cut bow-strings. 10 [Exeunt. 



ACT II. 

Scene I. — A Wood near Athens. 

Enter, from opposite sides, a Fairy, and Puck. 

Puck. How now, spirit ! whither wander you ? 
Eai. Over hill, over dale, 

Thorough bush, thorough brier, 

Over park, over pale, 

Thorough flood, thorough fire, 

I do wander everywhere, 

9 The properties were the furnishings of the stage, and the keeper of them 
is, I think, still called the property-man. 

10 This saying is no doubt rightly explained by Capell : " When a party 
was made at butts, assurance of meeting was given in the words of that 
phrase ; the sense of the person using them being, that he would hold, or 
keep, his promise, or they might 'cut his bowstrings', demolish him for an 
archer." 



SCENE I. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 39 

Swifter than the moony sphere j * 

And I serve the Fairy Queen, 

To dew her orbs 2 upon the green. 

The cowslips tall her pensioners be : 3 

In their gold coats spots you see : 

Those be rubies, fairy favours, 

In those freckles live their savours : 
I must go seek some dewdrops here, 
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear. 
Farewell, thou lob of spirits ; 4 1 11 be gone : 

1 Collier informs us that " Coleridge, in his lectures in 1818, was very 
emphatic in his praise of the beauty of these lines : ' the measure,' he said, 
' had been invented and employed by Shakespeare for the sake of its appro- 
priateness to the rapid and airy motion of the Fairy by whom the passage 
is delivered.' " And in his Literary Remains, after analyzing the measure, 
he speaks of the " delightful effect on the ear," caused by " the sweet transi- 
tion " from the amphimacers of the first four lines to the trochaic of the next 
two. 

2 These orbs were the verdant circles which the old superstition here de- 
lineated called fairy-rings, supposing them to be made by the night-tripping 
fairies dancing their merry roundels. As the ground became parched un- 
der the feet of the moonlight dancers, Puck's office was to refresh it with 
sprinklings of dew, thus making it greener than ever. 

3 The allusion is to Elizabeth's band of Gentleman Pensioners, who were 
chosen from among the handsomest and tallest young men of family and 
fortune ; they were dressed in habits richly garnished with gold lace. 

4 It would seem that Puck, though he could " put a girdle round about 
the earth in forty minutes," was heavy and sluggish in comparison with 
the other fairies : he was the lubber of the spirit tribe. Shakespeare's " lob 
of spirits " is the same as Milton's " lubbar fiend," in L Allegro : 

And he, by friar's lantern led, 
Tells how the drudging goblin swet 
To earn his cream-bowl duly set, 
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn, 
His shadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn, 
That ten day-labourers could not end: 
Then lies him down the lubbar fiend, 
And, stretch'd out all the chimney's length, 
Basks at the fire his hairy strength. 



40 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. ACT II. 

Our Queen and all her elves come here anon. 

Puck. The King doth keep his revels here to-night : 
Take heed the Queen come not within his sight ; 
For Oberon is passing fell and wrath, 
Because that she, as her attendant, hath 
A lovely boy, stol'n from an Indian king ; 
She never had so sweet a changeling : 5 
And jealous Oberon would have the child 
Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild ; 
But she perforce withholds the loved boy, 
Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy : 
And now they never meet in grove or green, 
By fountain clear or spangled starlight sheen, 
But they do square, 6 that all their elves, for fear, 
Creep into acorn-cups, and hide them there. 

5 A changeling was a child taken or given in exchange ; it being a 
roguish custom of the fairies, if a child of great promise were born, to steal 
it away, and leave an ugly, or foolish, or ill-conditioned one in its stead. 
So in The Faerie Queene, i. 10, 65 : 

From thence a Faery thee unweeting reft, 
There, as thou slepst in tender swadling band, 
And her base Elfin brood there for thee left: 
Such, men do chaungelings call, so chaung'd by Faeries theft. 
How much comfort this old belief sometimes gave to parents, may be seen 
from Drayton's Nymphidia : 

And when a child haps to be got, 
Which after proves an idiot, 
When folk perceive it thriveth not, 

The fault therein to smother, 
Some silly, doating, brainless calf, 
That understands things by the half, 
Says that the fairy left this aulf, 
And took away the other. 

6 The Poet repeatedly uses to square for to quarrel ; squarer for quar- 
reler. This use of the word probably grew from the posture or attitude 
men take when they stand to a fight. 



SCENE I. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 41 

Fat. Either I mistake your shape and making quite, 
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite 
Call'd Robin Goodfellow : are you not he 
That frights the maidens of the villagery ; 
Skims milk, and sometime labours in the quern, 7 "* 
And bootless makes the breathless housewife churn ; 
And sometime makes the drink to bear no barm; 8 
Misleads night- wanderers, laughing at their harm? 
Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck, 
You do their work, and they shall have good luck : 
Are not you he? 9 

Fuck. Fairy, thou speak'st aright ; 

I am that merry wanderer of the night. 
I jest to Oberon, and make him smile, 

7 Sometime and sometimes were used indiscriminately. — Aguemwasa 
hand-mill for grinding corn. 

8 Barm is yeast. So in Holland's Pliny : " Now the froth or barm, that 
riseth from these ales or beers, have a property to keep the skin fair and 
clear in women's faces." 

9 This account of Puck was gathered from the popular notions of the 
time. So in Harsnet's Declaration of Popish Impostures : " And if that the 
bowl of curds and cream were not duly set out for Robin Goodfellow, 
the friar, and Sisse the dairy-maid, why, then either the pottage was burnt 
next day in the pot, or the cheeses would not curdle, or the butter would 
not come, or the ale in the fat never would have good head." Likewise, 
in Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft : " Your grandames' maids were wont to 
set a bowl of milk for him, for his pains in grinding malt and mustard, 
and sweeping the house at midnight ; — this white bread and milk was 
his standing fee." And in Drayton's Nymphidia : 

This Puck seems but a dreaming dolt, 
Still walking like a ragged colt, 
And oft out of a bush doth bolt, 

Of purpose to deceive us ; 
And, leading us, makes us to stray 
Long winter nights out of the way, 
And when we stick in mire and clay, 

He doth with laughter leave us. 



42 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. ACT II. 

When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile, 

Neighing in likeness of a filly foal : 10 

And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl, 

In very likeness of a roasted crab ; u « 

And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob, 

And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale. 

The wisest aunt, 12 telling the saddest tale, 

Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me ; 

Then slip I from her bum, down topples she, 

And tailor cries, 13 and falls into a cough; 

And then the whole quire hold their hips and loff, 

And waxen in their mirth, 14 and neeze, and swear 

A merrier hour was never wasted there. 

But room now, fairy ! here comes Oberon. 

Fat. And here my mistress. Would that he were gone ! 

Enter, from o?ie side, Oberon, with his Train ; from the 
other, Titania, with hers. 

Obe. Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania. 

Tita. What, jealous Oberon? — Fairies, skip hence : 
I have forsworn his bed and company. 

Obe. Tarry, rash wanton : am not I thy lord ? 

Tita. Then I must be thy lady : but I know 
When thou hast stol'n away from Fairy-land, 

10 Filly-foal is a female colt, or a young mare. Neighing like, or in the 
m<x7mer of, a filly foal, is the meaning. 

11 It is the apple crab, not the animal crab, that is meant. 

12 Aunt and uncle were common titles of address to aged people ; as they 
still are, or were of late, to aged servants in the Southern States. 

13 Dr. Johnson thought he remembered to have heard this ludicrous ex- 
clamation upon a person's seat slipping from under him. He that slips 
from his chair falls as a tailor squats upon his board. 

14 Waxen is an old plural form of the verb to wax. Of course it means 
" increase in their mirth." 



SCENE I. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 43 

And in the shape of Corin sat all day, 
Playing on pipes of corn, 15 and versing love 
To amorous Phyllida. Why art thou here, 
Come from the farthest steep of India, 
But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon, 
Your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love, 
To Theseus must be wedded ? and you come 
To give their bed joy and prosperity. 

Obe. How canst thou thus, for shame, Titania, 
Glance at my credit with Hippolyta, 
Knowing I know thy love to Theseus ? 
Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night 
From Perigenia, whom he ravished? 
And make him with fair yEgle break his faith, 
With Ariadne and Antiopa? 

Tita. These are the forgeries of jealousy : 
And never, since the middle Summer's spring, 18 
Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead, 
By paved fountain or by rushy brook, 
Or on the beached margent of the sea, 
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind, 
But with thy brawls thou hast disturb 'd our sport. 
Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain, 
As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea 
Contagious fogs ; which falling in the land 

15 A pipe of corn is an ancient musical instrument, made of the straw of 
wheat, oats, or rye ; straws of different size being selected, and cut of differ- 
ent lengths, and then fastened together in a small frame or holder. Such 
was the shepherd's pipe, though sometimes made of reeds, so much cele- 
brated in classic poetry. 

16 Spring is here used in the sense of beginning. The Poet has elsewhere 
" spring of day " in the same sense. So in Job xxxviii. 12 : " Hast thou 
caused the day-spring to know his place? " 



44 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. ACT II. 

Have every pelting 17 river made so proud, 
That they have overborne their continents : 18 
The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain, 
The ploughman lost his sweat ; and the green corn 
Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard : 
The fold stands empty in the drowned field, 
And crows are fatted with the murrain flock ; 
The nine-men's-morris 19 is fill'd up with mud ; 
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green, 
For lack of tread, are undistinguishable : 
The human mortals want 20 their minstrelsy, — 
No night is now with hymn or carol blest : 
Therefore the Moon, the governess of floods, 
Pale in her anger, washes all the air ; 
And thorough this distemperature we see 

17 Pelting was often used for petty ox paltry. 

18 Continent was formerly used of that which contains any thing ; as a 
river is contained within its banks. 

19 This was a plat of green turf cut into a sort of chess board, for the 
rustic youth to exercise their skill upon. The game was called nine-men's- 
morris, because the players had each nine men, which they moved along 
the lines cut in the ground, until one side had taken or penned up all those 
on the other. " The quaint mazes in the wanton green " were where the 
youths and maidens led their happy dances in the open air. 

20 To want was not unfrequently used in the sense of to lack, or to be 
without. — All through this speech the Poet probably had in mind the Sum- 
mer of 1594, which was much celebrated for the strange misbehaviour of 
the weather. So in Dr. Forman's Diary : " This monethes of June and July 
were very wet and wonderful cold, like winter, that the 10 dae of Julii many 
did syt by the fyer, yt was so cold ; and soe was it in Maye and June ; and 
scarse too fair dais all that tyme, but it rayned every day more or lesse." 
Also in Churchyard's poem, C/iaritie, published in 1595 : 

A colder time in world was never seen : 
The skies do lour, the sun and moon wax dim ; 
Summer scarce known, but that the leaves are green : 
The winter's waste drives water o'er the brim; &c. 



SCENE I. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 45 

That rheumatic diseases do abound : 
The seasons alter ) hoary-headed frosts 
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose ; 
| And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown 
: An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds 
Is, as in mockery, set : the Spring, the Summer, 
The childing 21 Autumn, angry Winter, change 
Their wonted liveries ; and the mazed world, 
By their increase, now knows not which is which. 
And this same progeny of evils comes 
From our debate, from our dissension ; 
We are their parents and original. 

Obe. Do you amend it, then ; it lies in you : 
.Why should Titania cross her Oberon? 
I do but beg a little changeling boy, 
[ To be my henchman. 22 

Tita. Set your heart at rest : 

The Fairy-land buys not the child of me. 
His mother was a votaress of my order : 
And, in the spiced Indian air, by night, 
•Full often hath she gossip'd by my side ; 
And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands, 
Marking th' embarked traders on the flood. 
But she, being mortal, of that boy did die ; 
And for her sake I do rear up her boy \ 

21 Childing, here, is teeming ox fruitful. In the second line below, their 
increase is the produce of the several seasons, which is supposed to have 
become so mixed and confounded, that mankind are bewildered, or in a 
maze. This use of childing and increase is well illustrated in the Poet's 
97th Sonnet: " The teeming Autumn, big with rich increase, bearing the 
wanton burden of the prime," &c. 

22 Henchman is an attendant or page ; probably from the Saxon hengst, 
a groom. 



46 A midsummer-night's DREAM. ACT II. 

And for her sake I will not part with him. 

Obe. How long within this wood intend you stay ? 

Tita. Perchance till after Theseus' wedding-day. 
If you will patiently dance in our round, 
And see our moonlight revels, go with us ; 
If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts. 

Obe. Give me that boy, and I will go with thee. 

Tita. Not for thy Fairy kingdom. — Fairies, away ! 
We shall chide downright, if I longer stay. 

\Exit Titania with her train. 

Obe. Well, go thy way : thou shalt not from this grove 
Till I torment thee for this injury. — 
My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou remember'st 
Since 23 once I sat upon a promontory, 
And heard a mermaid, 24 on a dolphin's back, 
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, 
That the rude sea grew civil at her song, 
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, 
To hear 25 the sea-maid's music. 

Puck. I remember. 

— Obe. That very time I saw — but thou couldst not — 
Flying between the cold Moon and the Earth, 
Cupid all arm'd : a certain aim he took 
At a fair vestal throned by the West, 

23 Since was sometimes used for when ; and such is clearly the sense of 
it here. So in 2 Henry IV., iii. 2: " Do you remember since we lay all 
night in the windmill in Saint George's fields? " 

24 In Shakespeare's time, mermaid appears to have been sometimes used 
for siren. 

25 To hear is an instance of what is called the gerundial infinitive, and so 
is equivalent to at hearing ; the hearing of the seamaid's music being as- 
signed, not as the purpose, but as the cause of the stars shooting madly 
from their spheres. See Julius Ccesar, page 137, note 2 



SCENE I. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. jtf 

And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow, 

As it should pierce a hundred-thousand hearts : 

But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft 

Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery Moon, 

And the imperial votaress passed on, 

In maiden meditation, fancy-free. 26 

Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell : 

It fell upon a little western flower, 

Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound, 

And maidens call it love-in-idleness. 27 

Fetch me that flower ; the herb I show'd thee once : 

The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid 

Will make or man or woman madly dote 

Upon the next live creature that it sees. 

Fetch me this herb ; and be thou here again 

Ere the leviathan can swim a league. 

Puck. I'd put a girdle round about the Earth 
In forty minutes. \_Exit. 

Obe. Having once this juice, 

I'll watch Titania when she is asleep, 
And drop the liquor of it in her eyes. 
The next thing then she waking looks upon, — 
Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull, 
On meddling monkey or on busy ape, — 
She shall pursue it with the soul of love : 
And, ere I take this charm off from her sight, — 
As I can take it with another herb, — 

26 This delectable passage is universally understood as a compliment to 
Queen Elizabeth. 

27 The tri-coloured violet, commonly called pansies, or hearts-ease, is here 
meant : one or two of its petals are of a purple colour. It has other fanci- 
ful and expressive names, such as Cuddle-me-to-you, Three-faces-under-a- 
hood, Herb-trinity, Sec, 



48 a midsummer-night's DREAM. ACT II. 

I'll make her render up her page to me. 
But who comes here ? I am invisible ; 
And I will overhear their conference. 

Enter Demetrius, Helena following him. 

Dem. I love thee not, therefore pursue me not. 
Where is Lysander and fair Hermia? 
The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me. 
Thou told'st me they were stol'n into this wood ; 
And here am I, and wood 28 within this wood, 
Because I cannot meet my Hermia. 
Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more. 

Hel. You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant ; 29 
But yet you draw not iron, for my heart 
Is true as steel : leave you your power to draw, 
And I shall have no power to follow you. 

Dem. Do I entice you? do I speak you fair? 
Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth 
Tell you I do not nor I cannot love you ? 

Hel. And even for that do I love you the more. 
I am your spaniel ; and, Demetrius, 
The more you beat me, I will fawn on you : 
Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me, 
Neglect me, lose me ; only give me leave, 
Unworthy as I am, to follow you. 
What worser place can I beg in your love, — 
And yet a place of high respect with me, — 

28 Wood is an old word for frantic or mad. 

29 " There is now a dayes a kind of adatnant which draweth unto it 
fleshe, and the same so strongly, that it hath power to knit and tie together 
two mouthes of contrary persons, and drawe the heart of a man out of his 
bodie without offending any part of him." — Certaine Secrete Wonders oj 
Nature, by Edward Fenton, 1569. 



SCENE I. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 49 

Than to be used as you use your dog? 

Dem. Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit ; 
For I am sick when I do look on thee. 

Hel. And I am sick when I look not on you. 

Dem. You do impeach your modesty too much, 
To leave the city, and commit yourself 
Into the hands of one that loves you not ; 
To trust the opportunity of night, 
And the ill counsel of a desert place, 
With the rich worth of your virginity. 

Hel. Your virtue is my privilege for that. 
It is not night when I do see your face, 
Therefore I think I am not in the night ; 
Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company, 
For you in my respect are all the world : 
Then how can it be said I am alone, 
When all the world is here to look on me ? 

Dem. I'll ran from thee and hide me in the brakes, 
And leave thee to the mercy of wild-beasts. 

Hel. The wildest hath not such a heart as you. 
Run when you will, the story shall be changed, — 
Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase ; 
The dove pursues the griffin ; the mild hind 
Makes speed to catch the tiger, — bootless speed, 
When cowardice pursues, and valour flies ! 

Dem. I will not stay thy question ; 30 let me go : 
Or, if thou follow me, do not believe 
But I shall do thee mischief in the wood. 

Hel. Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field, 
You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius ! 

80 Here, as often, question is talk or conversation . 



5<D A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. ACT II. 

Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex : 
We cannot fight for love, as men may do ; 
We should be woo'd, and were not made to woo. 
I'll follow thee, and make a Heaven of Hell, 
To die upon the hand I love so well. 

[Exeunt Dem. and Hel. 
Obe. Fare thee well, nymph : ere he do leave this grove, 
Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seek thy love. — 

Re-enter Puck. 

Hast thou the flower there ? Welcome, wanderer. 

Puck. Ay, here it is. 

Obe. I pray thee, give it me. 

I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows, 
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows ; 
Quite over-canopied with lush 31 woodbine, 
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine ; 
And where the snake throws her enamelPd skin, 
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in : 
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night, 
Lull'd in this bower with dances and delight ; 
And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes, 
And make her full of hateful fantasies. 
Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove : 
A sweet Athenian lady is in love 
With a disdainful youth : anoint his eyes ; 
But do it when the next thing he espies 
May be the lady : thou shalt know the man 
By the Athenian garments he hath on. 
Effect it with some care, that he may prove 

31 Lush is luscious or luxuriant. So in The Tempest, ii. i : " How lush 
and lusty the grass looks ! how green ! " 



scene ii. a midsummer-night's dream. 5 1 

More fond on her than she upon her love : 
And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow. 
Puck. Fear not, my lord, your servant shall do so. 

\_Ex eunt, 

Scene II. — Another Part of the Wood. 

Enter Titania, with her Train. 

Tita. Come, now a roundel l and a fairy song ; 
Then, 'fore the third part of a minute, hence ; 
Some, to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds ; 
Some, war with rere-mice 2 for their leathern wings, 
To make my small elves coats ; and some, keep back 
The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots and wonders 
At our quaint 3 spirits. Sing me now asleep ; 
Then to your offices, and let me rest. 

Song. 
i Fairy. You spotted snakes with double tongue, 
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen ; 
Newts and blind-worms , 4 do no wrong, 
Come not near our fairy Queen. 
Chorus. Philomel, with melody 

Sing in our sweet lullaby ; 
Lulla, lulla, lullaby ; lulla, lulla, lullaby : 
Never harm, nor spell nor charm, 
Come our lovely lady nigh ; 
So, good flight, ivith lullaby. 

1 Roundel was the name of a dance in which the parties joined hands 
and formed a ring ; sometimes called a roundelay. 

2 Rere-mice is an old name for bats. 

3 Quaint is ingenious, adroit, cunning. 

4 The blind-worm is what is now called the slow-worm. It is, I believe, 
quite harmless, but did not use to be thought so. 



52 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHTS DREAM. ACT II. 

2 Fairy. Weaving spiders, come not here ; 

Hence, you long-legged spinners, hence/ 
Beetles black, approach not near; 
Worm nor snail, do no offence. 

Chorus. Philomel, with melody, &c. 

i Fairy. Hence, away ! now all is well : 
One aloof stand sentinel. 

[Exeunt Fairies. Titania sleeps. 

Enter Oberon. 

Obe. What thou see'st when thou dost wake, 

{Squeezes the flower on Titania's eyelids. 
Do it for thy true-love take ; 
Love and languish for his sake : 
Be it ounce, or cat, or bear, 
Pard, 5 or boar with bristled hair, 
In thy eye that shall appear 
When thou wakest, it is thy dear : 
Wake when some vile thing is near. [Exit. 

Enter Lysander and Hermia. 

Lys. Fair love, you faint with wandering in the wood ; 
And, to speak troth, I have forgot our way : 
We'll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good, 
And tarry for the comfort of the day. 

Her. Be't so, Lysander : find you out a bed ; 
For I upon this bank will rest my head. 

Lys. One turf shall serve as pillow for us both ; 
One heart, one bed, two bosoms, and one troth. 

Her. Nay, good Lysander ; for my sake, my dear, 

5 Pard is an old name for leopard. 



SCENE II. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHTS DREAM. 53 

Lie further off yet, do not lie so near. 

Lys. O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence ! 6 
Love takes the meaning in love's conference. 
I mean, that my heart unto yours is knit, 
So that but one heart we can make of it : 
Two bosoms interchained with an oath ; 
So then two bosoms and a single troth. 
Then by your side no bed-room me deny ; 
For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie. 

Her. Lysander riddles very prettily : 
Now much beshrew my manners and my pride, 
If Hermia meant to say, Lysander lied. 
But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy 
Lie further off; in human modesty, 
Such separation as may well be said 
Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid, 
So far be distant ; and, good night, sweet friend : 
Thy love ne'er alter till thy sweet life end ! 

Lys. Amen, amen, to that fair prayer, say I ; 
And then end life when I end loyalty ! 
Here is my bed : sleep give thee all his rest ! 

Her. With half that wish the wisher's eyes be press'd ! 

_ _ \They sleep. 

Enter Puck. 

Puck. Through the forest have I gone, 
But Athenian found I none, 
On whose eyes I might approve 
This flower's force in stirring love. 
Night and silence ! who is here ? 
Weeds of Athens he doth wear : 

*> That is, " understand the meaning of my innocence," or " my innocent 
meaning." 



54 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. ACT II. 

This is he my master said 

Despised the Athenian maid ; 

And here the maiden, sleeping sound, 

On the dank and dirty ground : 

Pretty soul ! she durst not lie 

Nearer this lack-love, this kill-courtesy. — 

Churl, upon thy eyes I throw 

All the power this charm doth owe. 7 

[Squeezes the flower on Lysander's eyelids. 
When thou wakest, let love forbid 
Sleep his seat on thy eyelid : 
So awake when I am gone ; 
For I must now to Oberon. 

Enter Demetrrjs and Helena, running. 

Hel. Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius. 

Dent. I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus. 

Hel. O, wilt thou darkling leave me? 8 do not so. 

Dem. Stay, on thy peril : I alone will go. [Exit 

Hel. O, I am out of breath in this fond chase ! 
The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace. 
Happy is Hermia, wheresoe'er she lies ; 
For she hath blessed and attractive eyes. 
How came her eyes so bright ? Not with salt tears : 
If so, my eyes are oftener wash'd than hers. 
No, no, I am as ugly as a bear ; 
For beasts that meet me run away for fear : 
Therefore no marvel though Demetrius 
Do, as a monster, fly my presence thus. 

7 Owe is continually used by the old poets for own or possess. 

8 An old phrase, meaning, " wilt thou leave me in the dark ? " So in 
King Lear, i. 4 : " So, out went the candle, and we were left darkling?* 



SCENE II. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 55 

What wicked and dissembling glass of mine 
Made me compare with Hermia's sphery eyne ? 
But who is here ? Lysander ! on the ground ! 
Dead ? or asleep ? I see no blood, no wound. — 
Lysander, if you live, good sir, awake. 

Lys. {Starting up.~\ And run through fire I will for thy 
sweet sake. 
Transparent Helen, Nature shows her art, 
That through thy bosom makes me see my heart. 
Where is Demetrius ? O, how fit a word 
Is that vile name to perish on my sword ! 

Hel. Do not say so, Lysander ; say not so. 
What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though? 
Yet Hermia still loves you : then be content. 

Lys. Content with Hermia ! No ; I do repent 
The tedious minutes I with her have spent. 
Not Hermia, but Helen now I love : 
Who will not change a raven for a dove ? 
The will of man is by his reason sway'd ; 
And reason says you are the worthier maid. 
Things growing are not ripe until their season : 
So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason ; 
And, touching now the point of human skill, 
Reason becomes the marshal to my will, 
And leads me to your eyes ; where I o'erlook 
Love-stories, written in Love's richest book. 

Hel. Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born? 
When at your hands did I deserve this scorn? 
Is't not enough, is't not enough, young man, 
That I did never, no, nor never can, 
Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius' eye, 
But you must flout my insufficiency? 



56 a midsummer-night's DREAM. ACT II. 

Good troth, you do me wrong, — good sooth, you do, — 

In such disdainful manner me to woo. 

But fare you well : perforce I must confess 

I thought you lord of more true gentleness. 

O, that a lady, of one man refused, 

Should of another therefore be abused ! \_Exit 

Lys. She sees not Hermia. — Hermia, sleep thou there : 
And never mayst thou come Lysander near ! 
For, as a surfeit of the sweetest things 
The deepest loathing to the stomach brings ; 
Or, as the heresies that men do leave 
Are hated most of those they did deceive ; 
So thou, my surfeit and my heresy, 
Of all be hated, but the most of me ! 
And, all my powers, address your love and might 
To honour Helen, and to be her knight ! [Exit. 

Her. \_Awaking.'] Help me, Lysander, help me ! do thy best 
To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast ! 
Ah me, for pity ! what a dream was here ! 
Lysander, look how I do quake with fear : 
Methought a serpent eat my heart away, 
And you sat smiling at his cruel prey. — 
Lysander ! — what, removed ? — Lysander ! lord ! — 
What, out of hearing ? gone ? no sound, no word ? 
Alack, where are you ? speak, an if you hear ; 
Speak, of all loves ! 9 I swoon almost with fear. 
No ? then I well perceive you are not nigh : 
Either death or you I'll find immediately. \_Exit. 

9 A petty adjuration of the time, equivalent to by all means. 



SCENE I. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 57 



ACT III. 

Scene I. — The Wood. Titania lying asleep. 
Enter Quince, Snug, Bottom, Flute, Snout, and Starveling. 

Bo I. Are we all met? 

Quin. Pat, pat ; and here's a marvellous convenient place 
for our rehearsal. This green plot shall be our stage, this 
hawthorn-brake our 'tiring-house ; and we will do it in action 
as we will do it before the Duke. 

Bot. Peter Quince, — 

Quin. What say'st thou, bully Bottom? 

Bot. There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and 
Thisbe that will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a 
sword to kill himself; which the ladies cannot abide. How 
answer you that ? 

Snout. By'r lakin, a parlous fear. 1 

Star. I believe we must leave the killing out, when all is 
done. 

Bot. Not a whit : I have a device to make all well. Write 
me a prologue ; and let the prologue seem to say, we will do 
no harm with our swords, and that Pyramus is not kill'd 
indeed ; and, for the more better assurance, tell them that I 
Pyramus am not Pyramus, but Bottom the Weaver : this will 
put them out of fear. 

Quin. Well, we will have such a prologue ; and it shall be 
written in eight and six. 2 

1 By'r lakin is a diminutive of by'r Lady, which, again, is a contraction 
of by our Lady, an old oath of frequent occurrence in these plays ; Lady 
meaning the Virgin Mary. Parlous is a corruption of perilous. 

2 In alternate verses of eight and six syllables. 



58 A midsummer-night's DREAM. act hi. 

Bot. No, make it two more ; let it be written in eight and 
eight. 

Snout Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion ? 

Star. I fear it, I promise you. 

Bot. Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves : to 
bring in — God shield us ! — a lion among ladies is a most 
dreadful thing ; for there is not a more fearful wild-fowl than 
your lion living ; and we ought to look to it. 

Snout. Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion. 

Bot. Nay, you must name his name, and half his face 
must be seen through the lion's neck ; and he himself must 
speak through, saying thus, or to the same defect, — Ladies, 

— or, Fair ladies, — / would wish you, — or, / would request 
you, — or, I would entreat you, — not to fear, not to tremble : 
my life for yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it 
were pity of my life : no, I am no such tiling; I am a man 
as other men are: — and there, indeed, let him name his 
name, and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner. 3 

Quin. Well, it shall be so. But there is two hard things, 

— that is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber ; for, you 
know, Pyramus and Thisbe meet by moonlight. 

Snug. Doth the Moon shine that night we play our play ? 
Bot. A calendar, a calendar ! look in the almanac ; find 
out moonshine, find out moonshine. 

3 Shakespeare may here allude to an incident said to have occurred in 
his time, which is recorded in a collection entitled Merry Passages and 
Jests : " There was a spectacle presented to Queen Elizabeth upon the 
water, and among others Harry Goldingham was to represent Arion upon 
the Dolphin's backe ; but finding his voice to be verye hoarse and unpleas- 
ant when he came to perform it, he tears off his disguise, and swears he 
was none of Arion, not he, but even honest Harry Goldenham ; which blunt 
discoverie pleased the queen better than if he had gone through in the 
right way : — yet he could order his voice to an instrument exceeding well." 



SCENE I. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 59 

Quin. Yes, it doth shine that night. 

Bot. Why, then may you leave a casement of the great 
chamber-window, where we play, open, and the Moon may 
shine in at the casement. 

Quin. Ay ; or else one must come in with a bush of 
thorns and a lantern, and say he comes to disfigure, or to 
present, the person of moonshine. Then there is another 
thing : we must have a wall in the great chamber ; for Pyra- 
mus and Thisbe, says the story, did talk through the chink 
of a wall. 

Snug. You can never bring in a wall. — What say you, 
Bottom ? 

Bot. Some man or other must present wall : and let him 
have some plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast about 
him, to signify wall ; and let him hold his fingers thus, and 
through that cranny shall Pyramus and Thisbe whisper. 

Quin. If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down, 
every mother's son, and rehearse your parts. Pyramus, you 
begin : when you have spoken your speech, enter into that 
brake ; — and so every one according to his cue. 

Enter Puck behind. 

Puck. What hempen home-spuns have we swaggering 
here, 
So near the cradle of the fairy Queen ? 
What, a play toward ! 4 I'll be an auditor; 
An actor too perhaps, if I see cause. 

Quin. Speak, Pyramus. — Thisbe, stand forth. 

Pyr. Thisbe, the flowers of odious savour sweet, — 

Quin. Odours, odours. 

4 Toward, here, is at hand, in hand, ox forthcoming. Very often used so 
by the Poet. Nor is the usage altogether out of date now. 



60 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. ACT III. 

Pyr. — odours savour sweet: 
So doth thy breath, my dearest Thisbe dear. 
But hark, a voice! stay thou but here awhile, 
And by-and-by I will to thee appear. [Exit. 

Puck. [Aside.'] A stranger Pyramus than e'er play'd here. 

[Exit 

This. Must I speak now ? 

Quin. Ay, marry, must you ; for you must understand he 
goes but to see a noise that he heard, and is to come again. 

This. Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue, 
Of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier, 
Most b risky juvenal? and eke most lovely Jew, 
As true as truest horse, that yet would never tire, 
I'll meet thee, Pyra?nus, at Ninny's tomb. 

Quin. Ninus 1 tomb, man : why, you must not speak that 
yet ; that you answer to Pyramus : you speak all your part 
at once, cues 6 and all. — Pyramus, enter : your cue is past ; 
it is, never tire. 

This. O, — As true as truest horse, that yet would never 
tire. 

Re-enter Puck, and Bottom with an ass's head. 

Pyr. An if I. were, fair Thisbe, I were only thine : — 
Quin. O monstrous ! O strange ! we are haunted. — Pray, 

masters ! fly, masters ! — Help ! 

[Exit with Snug, Flute, Snout, a?ui Starveling. 
Puck. I'll follow you, I'll lead you about a round, 

Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier : 

Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound, 

5 Juvenal is youth ; so used several times by Shakespeare. 

6 The cues were the last words of the preceding speech, which served as 
a hint to him who was to speak next. 



SCENE I. a midsummer-night's DREAM. 6 1 

A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire ; 

And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn, 

Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn. 7 {Exit 

Bot. Why do they run away ? this is a knavery of them to 

make me afeard. 

Re-enter Snout. 

Snout. O Bottom, thou art changed ! what do I see on thee ! 
Bot. What do you see ? you see an ass-head of your own, 
do you ? \_Exit Snout. 

Re-enter Quince. 

Quin. Bless thee, Bottom ! bless thee ! thou art trans- 
lated. {Exit. 

Bot. I see their knavery : this is to make an ass of me ; 
to fright me, if they could. But I will not stir from this 
place, do what they can : I will walk up and down here, and 
I will sing, that they shall hear I am not afraid. 

[Sings.] The ousel-cock so black of hue, 
With orange -tawny bill, 8 

7 The Protean versatility of Puck is celebrated in whatsoever has come 
down to us respecting him. Thus in an old tract entitled Rodin Good/el- 
low, his Mad Pranks and Merry Jests : 

Thou hast the power to change thy shape 
To horse, to hog, to dog, to ape. 

8 In the opinion of some commentators, the Poet or Bottom is a little out 
here in his ornithology. This opinion has probably arisen from a change 
in the use of the name since Shakespeare's day ; ousel being then used to 
denote the blackbird. Bottom's orange-tawny bill accords with what Yarrel 
says of the blackbird : H The beak and the edges of the eyelids in the adult 
male are gamboge yellow." The whistling of the blackbird is thus noted in 
Spenser's Epithalamion : 

The merry Larke hir mattins sings aloft; 

The Thrush replyes; the Mavis descant playes; 

The Ouzell shrills ; the Ruddock warbles soft. 



62 a midsummer-night's DREAM. ACT III. 

The throstle with his note so true, 
The wren with little quill ; — 

Tita. \_Awaking^\ What angel wakes me from my flowery 

bed? 
Bot. [Sings.] 

The finch, the sparrow, and the lark, 

The plain- song cuckoo^ gray, 
Whose note full many a man doth mark, 

And dares not answer nay ; — 

for, indeed, who would set his wit to so foolish a bird ? who 
would give a bird the lie, 10 though he cry cuckoo never so? 

Tita. I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again : 
Mine ear is much enamour'd of thy note ; 
So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape ; 
And thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me, 
On the first view, to say, to swear, I love thee. 

Bot. Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason for 
that : and yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little 
company together now-a-days ; — the more the pity that some 
honest neighbours will not make them friends. Nay, I can 
gleek 11 upon occasion.. 

Tita. Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful. 



9 The cuckoo is called pla in-song, as having no variety of note, but sing- 
ing in a monotone, after the manner of the ancient simple chant. 

10 " Set his wit to a bird " is contradict, argue with, or ?natch himself 
against a bird. In Troilus and Cressida, ii. i, Achilles says to Ajax, " Will 
you set your wit to a fool's?" and Thersites replies," No, I warrant you; 
for a fool's will shame it." \ 

11 Bottom is chuckling over the wit he has just vented. Gleek is from 
the Anglo-Saxon glig, and means catch, entrap, play upon, scoff at. So 
says Richardson. Glee is from the same original. 



scene i. a midsummer-night's dream. 63 

Bot. Not so, neither : but if I had wit 12 enough to get out 
of this wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn. 

Tita. Out of this wood do not desire to go : 
Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no. 
I am a spirit of no common rate, — 
The Summer still doth tend upon my state ; 
And I do love thee : therefore go with me ; 
I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee ; 
And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep, 
And sing, while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep : 
And I will purge thy mortal grossness so, 
That thou shalt like an airy spirit go. — 
Peas-blossom ! Cobweb ! Moth ! and Mustard-seed ! 

Enter Peas-blossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustard-seed. 

Peas. Ready. 

Cob. And I. 

Moth. And I. 

Mus. And I. 

All Four. Where shall we go ? 

Tita. Be kind and courteous to this gentleman, — 
Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes ; 
Feed him with apricocks and dewberries, 
With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries ; 
The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees, 13 
And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs, 
And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes, 
To have my love to bed and to arise ; 
And pluck the wings from painted butterflies 

12 This is one instance out of many in these plays, showing that wit and 
wisdom were used as equivalents. 

18 What we call bumble-bees ; so called from their loud humming. 



64 a midsummer-night's DREAM. ACT III. 

To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes : 
Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies. 

Peas. Hail, mortal ! 

Cob. Hail! 

Moth. Hail! 

Mus. Hail! 

Bot. I cry your Worships mercy 14 heartily. — I beseech 
your Worship's name. 

Cob. Cobweb. 

Bot. I shall desire you of more acquaintance, 15 good 
Master Cobweb : if I cut my finger, I shall make bold with 
you. — Your name, honest gentleman ? 

Peas. Peas-blossom. 

Bot. I pray you, commend me to Mistress Squash, 16 your 
mother, and to Master Peascod, your father. Good Master 
Peas-blossom, I shall desire you of more acquaintance too. — 
Your name, I beseech you, sir? 

Mus. Mustard-seed. 

Bot. Good Master Mustard-seed, I know your patience 
well : 17 that same cowardly, giant-like ox-beef hath devoured 
many a gentlemen of your House : I promise you your kin- 
dred hath made my eyes water ere now. I desire you of 
more acquaintance, good Master Mustard-seed. 

14 " I cry you mercy " is an old phrase for " I ask your pardon." 

15 A common form of speech in the Poet's time. So in The Merchant, 
iv. 1 : "I humbly do desire your Grace of pardon." 

16 Squash seems to have been originally used of such immature vegeta- 
bles as were eaten in the state of immaturity. In Shakespeare's time, the 
word had got appropriated to an immature peascod. When or how it 
came to its present meaning I cannot say. 

17 Bottom here seems rather too deep for the editors. Does he mean 
" your patience " in suffering " that same cowardly, giant-like ox-beef" to 
devour " many a gentleman of your House "? It has been proposed to read 
"passing well " ; but this might be a parlous defeature of Bottom's idiom. 



scene ii. a midsummer-night's dream. 65 

Tita. Come, wait upon him ; lead him to my bower. 
The Moon methinks looks with a watery eye ; 
And when she weeps, weeps every little flower, 
Lamenting some enforced chastity. 
Tie up my love's tongue, bring him silently. A \Exeunt* 



<*/ 



Scene II. — Another Part of the Wood, 

Enter Oberon. 

Obe. I wonder if Titania be awaked ; 
Then, what it was that next came in her eye, 
Which she must dote on in extremity. 
Here comes my messenger. — 

Enter Puck. 

How now, mad spirit ! 
What night-rule l now about this haunted grove ? 

Puck. My mistress with a monster is in love. 
Near to her close and consecrated bower, 
While she was in her dull and sleeping hour, 
A crew of patches, 2 rude mechanicals, 
That work for bread upon Athenian stalls, 
Were met together to rehearse a play, 
Intended for great Theseus' nuptial day. 
The shallowest thickskin of that barren sort, 3 

1 Night-r#/<? is such rule as is apt to govern in the night ; revelry. 

2 This use of patch is said to have grown from the motley or patch-work 
dress worn by the " allowed Fool." At all events, it came to be used gen- 
erally as a term of contempt for a simpleton or a clown. Shakespeare has 
it repeatedly in that sense. 

3 Sort here means pack, or company ; the same as crew, a little before. 
The Poet has several instances of such use ; as, " a sort of traitors," and " a 
sort of tinkers," and " a sort of vagabonds." " Many in a sort," a little after. 
is another instance. 



66 a midsummer-night's DREAM. act hi. 

Who Pyramus presented in their sport, 

Forsook his scene, and enter'd in a brake : 

When I did him at this advantage take, 

An ass's nowl 4 I fixed on his head : 

Anon his Thisbe must be answered, 

And forth my mimic comes. When they him spy, 

As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye, 

Or russet-pated choughs, 5 many in sort, 

Rising and cawing at the gun's report, 

Sever themselves, and madly sweep the sky ; 

So, at his sight, away his fellows fly ; 

And, at our stamp, here o'er and o'er one falls ; 

He murder cries, and help from Athens calls. 

Their sense thus weak, lost with their fears thus strong, 

Made senseless things begin to do them wrong ; 

For briers and thorns at their apparel snatch ; 

Some, sleeves, — some, hats ; — from yielders all things 

catch. 
I led them on in this distracted 6 fear, 
And left sweet Pyramus translated there : 
When, in that moment, — so it came to pass, — 
Titania waked, and straightway loved an ass. 

Obe. This falls out better than I could devise. 
But hast thou yet latch'd 7 the Athenian's eyes 

4 Nowl is an old word for head. Perhaps it is but a special application 
of knoll; that use growing from the rounded shape of what we now mean 
by that word. 

5 Yarrell, in his History of British Birds, says that Shakespeare here 
" speaks of the russet-pated (grey-headed) Choughs ; which term is appli- 
cable to the Jackdaw, but not the real Choughs." 

6 Distracted Tor distracting ; the passive form with the active tense. See 
page 25, note 5. 

7 Latch'd, or letch 'd, is licked or smeared over. From the French 
lechery 



SCENE II. a midsummer-night's dream. 67 

With the love-juice, as I did bid thee do? 

Puck. I took him sleeping, — that is finish'd too, — 
And the Athenian woman by his side ; 
That, when he waked, of force she must be eyed. 

Enter Hermia and Demetrkjs. 

Obe. Stand close : this is the same Athenian. 

Puck. This is the woman, but not this the man. 

Dem. O, why rebuke you him that loves you so ? 
Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe. 

Her. Now I but chide ; but I should use thee worse, 
For thou, I fear, hast given me cause to curse. 
If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep, 
Being o'er shoes in blood, plunge in knee-deep, 
And kill me too. 

The Sun was not so true unto the day 
As he to me : would he have stol'n away 
From sleeping Hermia? I'll believe as soon 
This whole Earth may be bored ; and that the Moon 
May through the centre creep, and so displease 
Her brother's noontide with th' Antipodes. 
It cannot be but thou hast murder'd him ; 
So should a murderer look, — so dread, so grim. 

Dem. So should the murder'd look ; and so should L 
Pierced through the heart with your stern cruelty : 
Yet you, the murderer, look as bright, as clear, 
As yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere: 

Her. What's this to my Lysander ? where is he ? 
Ah, good Demetrius, wilt thou give him me ? 

Dem. I had rather give his carcass to my hounds. 

Her. Out, dog ! out, cur ! thou drivest me past the bounds 
Of maiden's patience. Hast thou slain him, then? 



68 a midsummer-night's DREAM. ACT hi. 

Henceforth be never number'd among men ! 

O, once tell true, tell true, even for my sake ! 

Durst thou have look'd upon him being awake, 

And hast thou kill'd him sleeping? O brave touch ! 8 

Could not a worm, an adder, do so much ? 

An adder did it ; for with doubler tongue 

Than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung. 

Dem. You spend your passion on a misprised mood : 9 
I am not guilty of Lysander's blood j 
Nor is he dead, for aught that I can tell. 

Her. I pray thee, tell me, then, that he is well. 

Dem. An if I could, what should I get therefor ? 

Her. A privilege, never to see me more. 
And from thy hated presence part I so : 
See me no more, whether he be dead or no. [Exit. 

Dem. There is no following her in this fierce vein : 
Here therefore for a while I will remain. 
So sorrow's heaviness doth heavier grow 
For debt that bankrupt sleep doth sorrow owe ; 
Which now in some slight measure it will pay, 
If for his tender here I make some stay. 

[Lies down and sleeps. 

Obe. What hast thou done ? thou hast mistaken quite, 
And laid the love-juice on some true-love's sight : 
Of thy misprision must perforce ensue 
Some true-love turn'd, and not aiake turn'd true. 

Puck. Then fate o'er-rules ; that, one man holding troth, 

8 A touch anciently signified a trick or feat. Ascham has " The shrewd 
touches of many curst boys." And, in the old story of Howleglas, " For at 
all times he did some mad touch." 

9 " On a misprised mood" probably means in a mistaken manner. On 
and in were sometimes used interchangeably ; as also mood and mode ap- 
pear to have been. To misprise is to prise amiss, or to misapprehend. 



SCENE II. A midsummer-night's dream. 69 

A million fail, confounding oath on oath. 

Ode. About the wood go swifter than the wind, 
And Helena of Athens look thou find : 
All fancy-sick she is, and pale of cheer 10 
With sighs of love, that cost the fresh blood dear:" 
By some illusion see thou bring her here : 
I'll charm his eyes against she do appear. 

Puck. I go, I go ; look how I go, — 
Swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow. [Exit. 

Ode. Flower of this purple dye, 
Hit with Cupid's archery, 
Sink in apple of his eye ! 

[Squeezes the flower on Demetrius's eyelids. 
When his love he doth espy, 
Let her shine as gloriously 
As the Venus of the sky. — 
When thou wakest, if she be by, 
Beg of her for remedy. 

Re-enter Puck. 
Puck. Captain of our fairy band, 
Helena is here at hand ■ 
And the youth, mistook by me, 
Pleading for a lover's fee. 
Shall we their fond pageant see ? 
Lord, what fools these mortals be ! 

"Cheer is from the old French **», which Cotgrave thus explains- 
The face, v.sage, countenance, favour, looks, aspect." Hence it naturally 
came t mean that which affects the face, or gives it exprcssic n. - H I 
again, fancy-sick is love-sick. See page 30, note 19 

Sn9h A r° rding 1° th t° ld n ° fi0n ' that 6Very S, 'S h consumed a drop of blood 

sths anTnr 6 , " , G PhraSeS> " bl °° d ™ *« Sighs," - blood**** 
sighs, and blood-sucking sighs." 



7<D A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. ACT III. 

Obe. Stand aside : the noise they make 

Will cause Demetrius to awake. 
Puck. Then will two at once woo one, — 

That must needs be sport alone ; 12 

And those things do best please me 

That befall preposterously. 

Re-enter Helena and Lysander. 

Lys. Why should you think that I should 13 woo in 
scorn ? 
Scorn and derision never come in tears : 
Look, when I vow, I weep : and vows so born, 
In their nativity all truth appears. 
How can these things in me seem scorn to you, 
Bearing the badge of faith, to prove them true ? 

Hel. You do advance your cunning more and more. 
When truth kills truth, O devilish-holy fray ! 
These vows are Hermia's : will you give her o'er? 
AVeigh oath with oath, and you will nothing weigh : 
Your vows to her and me, put in two scales, 
Will even weigh ; and both as light as tales. 

Lys. I had no judgment when to her I swore. 

Hel. Nor none, in my mind, now you give her o'er. 

Lys. Demetrius loves her, and he loves not you. 

Dem. \_Awaking.~\ O Helen, goddess, nymph, perfect, di- 
vine ! 
To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne ? 
Crystal is muddy. O, how ripe in show 
Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow ! 

12 Rare sport ; sport so good as to spoil all other. 

13 Should where present usage requires would. The auxiliaries could 
should, and would were often used indiscriminately. 



SCENE II. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 71 

That pure congealed white, high Taurus' snow, 
Fann'd with the eastern wind, turns to a crow 
When thou hold'st up thy hand : O, let me kiss 
This princess of pure white, this seal of bliss ! 14 

Hel. O spite ! O Hell ! I see you all are bent 
To set against me for your merriment : 
If you were civil and knew courtesy, 
You would not do me thus much injury. 
Can you not hate me, as I know you do, 
But you must join in souls 15 to mock me too ? 
If you were men, as men you are in show, 
You would not use a gentle lady so ; 
To vow, and swear, and superpraise my parts, 
When I am sure you hate me with your hearts. 
You both are rivals, and love Hermia ; 
And now both rivals, to mock Helena : 
A trim exploit, a manly enterprise, 
To conjure tears up in a poor maid's eyes 
With your derision ! none of noble sort 16 
Would so offend a virgin, and extort 
A poor soul's patience, all to make you sport. 

Lys. You are unkind, Demetrius ; be not so ; 
For you love Hermia : this you know I know : 

14 So in Antony and Cleopatra, hi. 13 : " My playfellow, your hand ; this 
kingly seal, and plighter of high hearts." Princess here plainly has the 
force of the surperlative ; the paragon, the purest of white. — This pretty 
piece of extravagance reminds me of Spenser's Una : 

A lovely ladie rode him faire beside, 
Upon a lowly ass more white than snow ; 
Yet she much whiter. 

15 That is, join heartily, or in earnest ; be of the same mind. 

16 Sort here means rank or quality ; a common use of the word in Shake- 
speare's time. So in Henry V., iv. 7 : "It may be his enemy is a gentleman 
of great sort." 



72 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. ACT III. 

And here, with all good will, with all my heart, 
In Hermia's love I yield you up my part ; 
And yours of Helena to me bequeath, 
Whom I do love, and will do to my death. 

Hel. Never did mockers waste more idle breath. 

Dem. Lysander, keep thy Hermia ; I will none : 
If e'er I loved her, all that love is gone. 
My heart with her but as guest-wise sojourn'd, 
And now to Helen is it home return 'd, 
There to remain. 

Lys. Helen, it is not so. 

Dem. Disparage not the faith thou dost not know, 
Lest, to thy peril, thou aby 17 it dear. 
Look where thy love comes ; yonder is thy dear. 

Re-enter Hermia. 

Her. Dark night, that from the eye his function takes. 
The ear more quick of apprehension makes ; 
Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense, 
It pays the hearing double recompense. — 
Thou art not by mine eye, Lysander, found ; 
Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound. 
But why unkindly didst thou leave me so ? 

Lys. Why should he stay, whom love doth press to go? 

Her. What love could press Lysander from my side ? 

Lys. Lysander's love, that would not let him bide, — 
Fair Helena ; who more engilds the night 

17 Aby or able means to suffer for. Skinner thinks it is formed, not from 
abide but from buy ; though the two are often confounded. So in The 
Faerie Queene, ii. 8, 33 : " That direfull stroke thou dearely shalt aby." And 
in Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle : " Foolhardy 
knight, full soon thou shalt aby this fond reproach ; thy body will I bang." 



SCENE ii. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 73 

Than all yon fiery O's and eyes of light. 

Why seek'st thou me ? could not this make thee know, 

The hate I bear thee made me leave thee so ? 

Her. You speak not as you think : it cannot be. 

Hel. Lo, she is one of this confederacy ! 
Now I perceive they have conjoin'd all three 
To fashion this false sport in spite of me. — 
Injurious Hermia ! most ungrateful maid ! 
Have you conspired, have you with these contrived 
To bait 18 me with this foul derision ? 
Is all the counsel that we two have shared, 
The sister-vows, the hours that we have spent, 
When we have chid the hasty-footed time 
For parting us, — O, and is all forgot ? 
All school-day friendship, childhood innocence ? 
We, Hermia, like two artificial 19 gods, 
Have with our neelds 20 created both one flower, 
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion, 
Both warbling of one song, both in one key ; 
As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds, 
Had been incorporate. 21 So we grew together, 

18 To bait is to worry, to bark at, as bears used to be baited by dogs in 
the old bear-baiting times. So in The Faerie Queene, ii. 8, 42: "A salvage 
bull, whom two fierce mastives bayt." 

19 Artificial is here used for the worker in art, not the work ; like its 
Latin original artifcx, artist, or artificer. 

20 Neeld was a common contraction of needle. 

21 Gibbon, in his account of the friendship between the great Cappado- 
cian saints, Basil and Gregory Nazianzen, Decline and Fall, chap, xxvii., 
note 29, refers to this passage, and quotes a parallel passage from Gregory's 
Poem on his own Life. The historian adds, " Shakespeare had never read 
the poems of Gregory Nazianzen, he was ignorant of the Greek language; 
but his mother-tongue, the language of Nature, is the same in Cappadocia 
and in Britain." 



74 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. ACT III. 

Like to a double cherry, seeming parted ; 

But yet a union in partition, 

Two lovely berries moulded on one stem ; 

So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart ; 

Two of the first, like coats in heraldry, 

Due but to one, and crowned with one crest. 22 

And will you rend our ancient love asunder, 

To join with men in scorning your poor friend? 

It is not friendly, 'tis not maidenly : 

Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for't, 

Though I alone do feel the injury. 

Her. I am amazed at your passionate words. 
I scorn you not : it 1 seems that you scorn me. 

Hel. Have you' not set Lysander, as in scorn, 
To follow me, and praise my eyes and face ? 
And made your other love, Demetrius — 
Who even but now did spurn me with his foot — 
To call me goddess, nymph, diving, and rare, 
Precious, celestial? Wherefore speaks he this 
To her he hates ? and wherefore doth Lysander 
Deny your love, so rich within his soul, 
And tender me, forsooth, affection, 
But by your setting on, by your consent? 
What though I be not so in grace as you, 
So hung upon with love, so fortunate ; 
But miserable most, to love unloved ? 
This you should pity rather than despise. 

Her. I understand not what you mean by this. 

Hel. Ay, do, persever, counterfeit sad looks ; 

22 Douce thus explains this passage : " We had two of the first, i.e., 
bodies, like the double coats in heraldry that belong to man and wife as one 
person, but which, like our single heart, have but one crest" 



SCENE II. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 75 

Make mouths upon me when I turn my back ; 
Wink each at other ; hold the sweet jest up : 
This sport, well carried, shall be chronicled. 
If you had any pity, grace, or manners, 
You would not make me such an argument. 23 
But, fare ye well : 'tis partly mine own fault ; 
Which death or absence soon shall remedy. 

Lys. Stay, gentle Helena ; hear my excuse : 
My love, my life, my soul, fair Helena ! 

Hel. O excellent ! 

He?-. Sweet, do not scorn her so. 

Dem. If she cannot entreat, I can compel. 

Lys. Thou canst compel no more than she entreat : 
Thy threats have no more strength than her weak prayers. — 
Helen, I love thee ; by my life, I do : 
I swear by that which I will lose for thee, 
To prove him false that says I love thee not. 

Dem. I say I love thee more than he can do. 

Lys. If thou say so, withdraw, and prove it too. 

Dem. Quick, come ! 

Her. Lysander, whereto tends all this? 

Lys. Away, you Ethiop ! 

Dem. No, no, sir : — do ; 

Seem to break loose, take on as you would follow, 
But yet come not : you are a tame man, go ! 

Lys. Hang off, thou cat, thou burr ! vile thing, let loose, 
Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent ! 

Her. Why are you grown so rude ? what change is this. 
Sweet love ? 

Lys. Thy love ! out, tawny Tartar, out ! 

23 Argument, here, is subject or theme of sport. 



y6 a midsummer-night's DREAM. act III. 

Out, loathed medicine ! hated potion, hence ! 

Her. Do you not jest? 

Hel. Yes, sooth ; 24 and so do you. 

Lys. Demetrius, I will keep my word with thee. 

De?n. I would I had your bond, for I perceive 
A weak bond holds you : I'll not trust your word. 

Lys. What, should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead ? 
Although I hate her, I'll not harm her so. 

Her. What, can you do me greater harm than hate ? 
Hate me ! wheref6re ? O me ! what means my love ? 
Am not I Hermia ? are you not Lysander ? 
I am as fair now as I was erewhile. 
Since night you loved me ; yet since night you left me : 
Why, then you left me, — O, the gods forbid ! — 
In earnest, shall I say? 

Lys. Ay, by my life ; 

And never did desire to see thee more. 
Therefore be out of hope, of question, doubt ; 
Be certain, nothing truer ; 'tis no jest 
That I do hate thee, and love Helena. 

Her. O me ! — you juggler ! you canker-blossom ! 25 
You thief of love ! what, have you come by night 
And stol'n my love's heart from him ? 

Hel. Fine, i'faith ! 

Have you no modesty, no maiden shame, 
No touch of bashfulness ? What, will you tear 



24 Sooth is truth ; as in soothsayer, which originally meant truth-speaker. 

25 The canker is a worm that preys on the leaves or buds of flowers, 
always beginning in the middle. So before, in this play : " Some to kill 
cankers in the musk-rose buds." — The verse requires juggler here to be a 
trisyllable. It appears that divers similar words were sometimes so pro- 
nounced. 



SCENE II. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. // 

Impatient answers from my gentle tongue ? 
Fie, fie ! you counterfeit, you puppet, you ! 

Her. Puppet ! why, so ; ay, that way goes the game. 
Now I perceive that she hath made compare 
Between our statures ; she hath urged her height ; 
And with her personage, her tall personage, 
Her height, forsooth, she hath prevail'd with him. — 
And are you grown so high in his esteem, 
Because I am so dwarfish and so low? 
How low am I, thou painted maypole ? speak ; 
How low am I ? I am not yet so low 
But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes. 

Hel. I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen, 
Let her not hurt me : I was never curst ; 26 
I have no gift at all in shrewishness ; 
I am a right maid for my cowardice : 
Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think, 
Because she's something lower than myself, 
That I can match her. 

Her. Lower ! hark, again. 

Hel. Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me. 
I evermore did love you, Hermia, 
Did ever keep your counsels, never wrong'd you ; 
Save that, in love unto Demetrius, 
I told him of your stealth unto this wood. 
He follow'd you ; for love I follow'd him ; 
But he hath chid me hence, and threaten'd me 
To strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too : 
And now, so you will let me quiet go, 
To Athens will I bear my folly back, 

26 Curst is shrewish, spiteful, scolding ; often so used. 



78 A midsummer-night's DREAM. ACT IIL 

And follow you no further : let me go : 
You see how simple and how fond I am. 

Her. Why, get you gone : who is't that hinders you? 

Hel. A foolish heart, that I leave here behind. 

Her. What, with Lysander? 

Hel. With Demetrius. 

Lys. Be not afraid ; she shall not harm thee, Helen. 

Dem. No, sir, she shall not, though you take her part. 

Hel. O, when she's angry, she is keen and shrewd ! 
She was a vixen when she went to school ; 
And, though she be but little, she is fierce. 

Her. Little again ! nothing but low and little ! — 
Why will you suffer her to flout me thus ? 
Let me come to her. 

Lys. Get you gone, you dwarf; 

You minimus, of hindering knot-grass 27 made ; 
You bead, you acorn. 

Dem. You are too officious 

In her behalf that scorns your services. 
Let her alone : speak not of Helena ; 
Take not her part ; for, if thou dost intend 26 
Never so little show of love to her, 
Thou shalt aby.it. 29 

Lys. Now she holds me not ; 



27 Knot-grass, it seems, was anciently supposed to stop the growth of 
those to whom it was applied. So in Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of 
the Burning Pestle, ii. 2 : " The child's a fatherless child, and say they should 
put him into a strait pair of gaskins, 'twere worse than knot-grass ; he would 
never grow after it." 

28 Intend with the sense of pretend ; the Poet has it repeatedy so. In 
fact, the two words were used interchangeably, and we often have either in 
the sense of the other. 

29 Suffer ox pay dearly for it ; rue it. See page 72, note 17. 



SCENE II. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 79 

Now follow, if thou darest, to try whose right, 
Of thine or mine, 30 is most in Helena. 

Dem. Follow ! nay, I'll go with thee, cheek by jowl. 31 

\_Exeunt Lysander and Demetrius. 

Her. You, mistress, all this coil is 'long 32 of you : 
Nay, go not back. 

Hel. I will not trust you, I, 

Nor longer stay in your curst company. 
Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray ; 
My legs are longer though, to run away. \_Exh. 

Her. I am amazed, and know not what to say. \_Exit. 

Obe. This is thy negligence : still thou mistakest, 
Or else committ'st thy knaveries wilfully. 

Puck. Believe me, King of shadows, I mistook. 
Did you not tell me I should know the man 
By the Athenian garments he had on? 
And so far blameless proves my enterprise, 
That I have 'nointed an Athenian's eyes ; 
And so far am I glad it so did sort, 33 
As this their jangling I esteem a sport. 

Obe. Thou see'st these lovers seek a place to fight : 
Hie therefore, Robin, overcast the night ; 
The starry welkin cover thou anon 
With drooping fog, as black as Acheron ; 

30 This is in accordance with old usage. We have another instance in 
The Tempest, ii. 1 : "Which, of he or Adrian, for a good wager, first begins 
to crow? " 

31 That is, side by side, or with cheeks close together. Jowl is, properly, 
jaw, ox jaw-bone. 

32 Along of is an old phrase exactly equivalent to because of; so used by 
all writers in Shakespeare's time, and occasionally used still. — Coil is stir, 
bustle, turmoil. See The Tempest, page 60, note 56. 

33 Sort, here, is fall out, happen, or come to pass. So in Much Ado, v. 4 : 
" I am glad that all things sort so well." The usage was common. 



80 A midsummer-night's DREAM. ACT III. 

And lead these testy rivals so astray, 

As one come not within another's way. 

Like to Lysander sometime 34 frame thy tongue, 

Then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong ; 

And sometime rail thou like Demetrius ; 

And from each other look thou lead them thus, 

Till o'er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep 

With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep : 

Then crush this herb into Lysander's eye ; 

Whose liquor hath this virtuous property, 

To take from thence all error with his 35 might, 

And make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight. 

When they next wake, all this derision 

Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision ; 

And back to Athens shall the lovers wend, 

With league whose date till death shall never end. 

Whiles I in this affair do thee employ, 

I'll to my Queen and beg her Indian boy ; 

And then I will her charmed eye release 

From monster's view, and all things shall be peace. 

Puck. My fairy lord, this must be done with haste, 
For Night's swift dragons 3G cut the clouds full fast, 
And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger ; 



34 Sometime for sometimes. See page 41, note 7. 

35 His for its, referring to liquor ; its not being then an accepted word. 
See Hamlet, page 47, noie 8. 

36 The chariot of Madam Night was anciently drawn by a team of drag- 
ons, that is, serpents, who were thought to be always awake, because they 
slept with their eyes open ; and therefore were selected for this purpose. 
So in Cymbel'me, ii. 2 : " Swift, swift, ye dragons of the night." And in Mil- 
ton's // Penseroso : 

Smoothing the rugged brow of night, 
While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke. 



SCENE II. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 5 1 

At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there, 

Troop home to churchyards : damned spirits all, 

That in crossways and floods have burial, 37 

Already to their wormy beds are gone ; 

For fear lest day should look their shames upon, 

They wilfully themselves exile from light, 

And must for aye consort with black-brow'd night. 

Obe. But we are spirits of another sort : 
I with the Morning's love 38 have oft made sport ; 
And, like a forester, the groves may tread, 
Even till the eastern gate, all fiery-red, 
Opening on Neptune, with fair-blessed beams 
Turns into yellow gold his salt-green streams. 
But, notwithstanding, haste ; make no delay : 
We may effect this business yet ere day. \_Exii, 

Puck. Up and down, up and down, 

I will lead them up and down : 

I am fear'd in field and town : 

Goblin, lead them up and down. 
Here comes one. 

Re-enter Lysander. 

Lys. Where art thou, proud Demetrius ? speak thou now. 
Puck. Here, villain ; drawn and ready. Where art thou ? 

37 The ghosts of self-murderers, who were buried in crossroads ; and of 
those who being drowned were condemned (according to the opinion of the 
ancients) to wander for a hundred years, as the rites of sepulture had never 
been regularly bestowed on their bodies. See the passage in Hamlet, act i., 
sc. i : " I have heard, the cock that is the trumpet to the morn," &c. 

38 The allusion is, probably, to Cephalus, who was a mighty hunter. 
Aurora became enamoured of him, and took him for her love. So in The 
Phoenix Nest, 1593 : " Aurora now began to rise againe from watrie couch 
and from old Tithon's side, in hope to kisse upon Acteian plaine yong 
Cephalus." 



82 a midsummer-night's DREAM. act hi. 

Lys. I will be with thee straight. 
Puck. Follow me, then, 

To plainer ground. \_Exit Lysander, as following the voice. 

Re-enter Demetrius. 

Dem. Lysander ! speak again : 

Thou runaway, thou coward, art thou fled ? 
Speak ! in some bush ? where dost thou hide thy head ? 

Puck. Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars, 
Telling the bushes that thou look'st for wars, 
And wilt not come ? Come, recreant ; come, thou child ; 
I'll whip thee with a rod : he is defiled 
That draws a sword on thee. 

Dem. Yea, art thou there ? 

Puck. Follow my voice : we'll try no manhood here. 

[Exeunt. 
Re-enter Lysander. 

Lys. He goes before me and still dares me on : 
When I come where he calls, then he is gone. 
The villain is much lighter-heel'd than I : 
I follow' d fast, but faster he did fly ; 
That fall'n am I in dark uneven way, 
And here will rest me. [Lies down.~\ — Come, thou gentle 

day ! 
For, if but once thou show me thy gray light, 
I'll find Demetrius, and revenge this spite. [Sleeps. 

Re-enter Puck and Demetrius. 

Puck. Ho, ho, ho, ho ! 39 Coward, why comest thou not? 

39 A strong dash of malignant, or mischievous sportiveness belongs to 
this character. There was an old local proverb, " To laugh like Robin 
Goodfellow " ; which probably meant, to laugh in mockery or scorn. In 



scene ii. a midsummer-night's dream. 83 

Dem. Abide me, if thou darest ; for well I wot 
Thou runn'st before me, shifting every place, 
And darest not stand, nor look me in the face. 
Where art thou now? 

Puck. Come hither : I am here. 

Dem. Nay, then thou mock'st me. Thou shalt 'by 40 
this dear, 
If ever I thy face by daylight see : 
Now, go thy way. Faintness constraineth me 
To measure out my length on this cold bed. 
By day's approach look to be visited. \_Lies down and sleeps. 

Re-enter Helena. 

Hel. O weary night, O long and tedious night, 
Abate thy hours ! Shine comforts from the East, 
That I may back to Athens by daylight, 
From these that my poor company detest : 
And sleep, that sometime shuts up sorrow's eye, 
Steal me awhile from mine own company. 

\_Lies down and sleeps* 
Puck. Yet but three ? Come one more ; 
Two of both kinds makes up four. 
Here she comes, curst and sad : 
Cupid is a knavish lad, 
Thus to make poor females mad. 

Re-enter Hermia. 

Her. Never so weary, never so in woe ; 

the old Moral-plays, as also in the older Miracle-plays, the Devil was gener- 
ally one of the leading characters, and his laughter of fiendish mirth was 
always expressed as in the text. So in Gammer Gurton's Needle: "But, 
Diccon, Diccon, did not the Devil cry ho, ho, ho?" 
40 'By for aby, as before explained ; page 78, note 29. 



84 a midsummer-night's DREAM. ACT III 

Bedabbled with the dew, and torn with briers ; 
I can no further crawl, no further go ; 
My legs can keep no pace with my desires. 
Here will I rest me till the break of day. 
Heavens shield Lysander, if they mean a fray ! 

[Lies down a?id sleeps. 
Puck. On the ground sleep sound : 
I'll apply to your eye, 
Gentle lover, remedy. 

[Squeezing the herd on Lysander's eyelids. 
When thou wakest, thou takest 
True delight in the sight 
Of thy former lady's eye : 
And the country proverb known, 
That every man should take his own, 
In your waking shall be shown : 
Jack shall have Jill; 41 
Nought shall go ill ; 
The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well. 

\_Exit. 

41 This proverb is quoted repeatedly in old plays ; and its meaning is 
much the same as that of the other proverbial sayings here clustered with it. 
So in Loves Labours Lost, v. 2 : " Our wooing doth not end like an old play ; 
Jack hath not Jill." And in Heywood, 1598 : "" Come chat at home, all is 
well, Jack shall have JUL" 



SCENE I. a midsummer-night's dream. 85 



ACT IV. 

Scene I. — The Wood. Lysander, Demetrius, Helena, 
and Hermia, lying asleep. 

£nterTiTANiA and Bottom; Peas-blossom, Cobweb, Moth, 
Mustard-seed, and other Fairies attending; Oberon be- 
hind unseen. 

Tita. Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed, 
While I thy amiable cheeks do coy, 1 
And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head, 
And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy. 

Bot. Where's Peas-blossom? 

Peas. Ready. 

Bot. Scratch my head, Peas-blossom. — -Where's Monsieur 
Cobweb ? 

Cob. Ready. 

Bot. Monsieur Cobweb, good monsieur, get your weapons 
in your hand, and kill me a red-hipp'd humble-bee on the 
top of a thistle ; and, good monsieur, bring me the honey- 
bag. Do not fret yourself too much in the action, monsieur ; 
and, good monsieur, have a care the honey-bag break not ; I 
would be loth to have you overflown with a honey-bag, sig- 
nior. — Where's Monsieur Mustard-seed? 

Mus. Ready. 

Bot. Give me your neif, 2 Monsieur Mustard-seed. Pray 
you, leave your courtesy, good monsieur. 

1 To coy is to stroke with the hand, to fondle, or caress. 

2 Neif is an old word ioxfst. So in 2 Henry IV., ii. 4 : " Sweet knight, 
I kiss thy neif." 



86 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. ACT IV. 

Mus. What's your will ? 

Bot. Nothing, good monsieur, but to help Cavalery Cob- 
web 3 to scratch. I must to the barber's, monsieur ; for me- 
thinks I am marvellous hairy about the face ; and I am such 
a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me, I must scratch. 

Tita. What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love ? 

Bot. I have a reasonable good ear in music : let us have 
the tongs and the bones. [Rough music. 

Tita. Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat. 

Bot. Truly, a peck of provender : I could munch your 
good dry oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle 4 
of hay : good hay, sweet hay hath no fellow. 

Tita. I have a venturous fairy that shall seek 
The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee thence new nuts. 

Bot. I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas. 
But, I pray you, let none of your people stir me : I have an 
exposition of sleep come upon me. 

Tita. Fairies, be gone, and be awhile away. — 

[Exeunt Fairies. 
Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms : 
So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle 
Gently entwist ; 5 the female ivy so 

3 Bottom is here in a strange predicament, and has not had time to per- 
fect himself in the nomenclature of his fairy attendants ; and so he gets the 
names somewhat mixed. Probably he is here addressing Cavalery Peas- 
blossom, but gives him the wrong name. 

4 Bottle is an old word for bundle, from the French boteau. Richardson 
says, " It is still common in the northern parts of England to call a truss or 
bundle of hay a bottle!' 

5 Odd work has sometimes been made with this passage by explaining 
woodbine and honeysuckle as meaning the same thing; and Singer's expla- 
nation still proceeds upon an identity of the two plants. In Jonson's Vision 
of Delight we have the following : " Behold, how the blue bindweed doth 
itself infold with honeysuckle" Upon this passage Gifford notes as follows: 



scene i. a midsummer-night's dream. 87 

Enrings the barky ringers of the elm. 

O, how I love thee ! how I dote on thee ! \They sleep. 

Enter Puck. 

Obe. \_Advancing.~] Welcome, good Robin. See'st thou 
this sweet sight? 
Her dotage now I do begin to pity : 
For, meeting her of late behind the wood, 
Seeking sweet favours 6 for this hateful fool, 
I did upbraid her, and fall out with her ; 
For she his hairy temples then had rounded 
With coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers ; 
And that same dew, which sometime on the buds 
Was wont to swell, like round and orient pearls, 
Stood now within the pretty flowerets' eyes, 
Like tears., that did their own disgrace bewail. 
When I had at my pleasure taunted her, 
And she in mild terms begg'd my patience, 
I then did ask of her her changeling child ; 
Which straight she gave me, and her fairies sent, 
To bear him to my bower in Fairy-land. 
And, now I have the boy, I will undo 
This hateful imperfection of her eyes : 
And, gentle Puck, take this transformed scalp 
From off the head of this Athenian swain ; 
That he, awaking when the other do, 
May all to Athens back again repair, 

" The woodbine of Shakespeare is the blue bindweed of Jonson : in many 
of our counties woodbine is still the name for the great convolvulus." 

6 So in Greene's Quip for an Upstart Courtier, quoted by Dyce : " These 
with syren-like allurement so entised these quaint squires, that they be- 
stowed all their Jlowers upon them iox favours." 



88 A midsummer-night's DREAM. ACT IV. 

And think no more of this night's accidents, 
But as the fierce vexation of a dream. 
But first I will release the fairy Queen. 
Be as thou wast wont to be ; 

\Toudiing her eyes with an herb. 
See as thou wast wont to see : 
Dian's bud 7 o'er Cupid's flower 
Hath such force and blessed power. 
Now, my Titania ; wake you, my sweet Queen. 

Tita. My Oberon ! what visions have I seen ! 
Methought I was enamour'd of an ass. 
Obe. There lies your love. 

Tita. How came these things to pass ? 

O, how mine eyes do loath his visage now ! 

Obe. Silence awhile. — Robin, take off this head. — 
Titania, music call ; and strike more dead 
Than common sleep, of all these five the sense. 
Tita. Music, ho ! music, such as charmeth sleep ! 
Puck. Now, when thou wakest, with thine own fool's eyes 

peep. 
Obe. Sound, music ! \Still music .] — Come, my Queen, 
take hands with me, 
And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be. 
Now thou and I are new in amity, 
And will to-morrow midnight solemnly 
Dance in Duke Theseus' house triumphantly, 
And bless it to all fair posterity : 
There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be 

7 Dian's Bud is the bud of the Agnus Castus, or Chaste Tree. " The 
vertue of this hearbe is, that he will kepe man and woman chaste'' Macer's 
Herbal, by Lynacre. Cupid's flower is the Viola tricolour, or Love-in-Idle- 
ness. 



scene i. a midsummer-night's dream. 89 

Wedded, with Theseus, all in jollity. 
Puck. Fairy King, attend, and mark : 

I do hear the morning lark. 
Ode. Then, my Queen, in silence sad, 8 
Trip we after the night's shade : 
We the globe can compass soon, 
Swifter than the wandering Moon. 
Tita. Come, my lord ; and in our flight 
Tell me how it came this night 
That I sleeping here was found 
With these mortals on the ground. [Exeunt. 

[Horns winded within. 
Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, Egeus, and Train. 
The. Go, one of you, find out the forester ; 
For now our observation 9 is perform'd ; 
And, since we have the vaward 10 of the day, 
My love shall hear the music of my hounds : 
Uncouple in the western valley ; let them go ; — 
Dispatch, I say, and find the forester. — [Exit an Attend. 
We will, fair Queen, up to the mountain's top, 
And mark the musical confusion 
Of hounds and echo in conjunction. 

Hip. I was with Hercules and Cadmus once, 
When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the boar 
With hounds of Sparta : never did I hear 
Such gallant chiding ; ll for, besides the groves, 

8 Sad here signifies only grave, serious. Often so. 

9 The honours due to the morning of May. So in a former scene : " To 
do observance to a morn of May." 

10 The early part, the vanward, of the day. 

11 Chiding means here the cry of hounds. To chide is used sometimes 
for to sound, or make a noise, without any reference to scolding. So in 
Henry VIII. : " As doth a rock against the chiding flood." 



90 a midsummer-night's DREAM. act IV. 

The skies, the fountains, every region near 
Seem'd all one mutual cry : I never heard 
So musical a discord, such sweet thunder. 

The. My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, 
So flew'd, so sanded ; l2 and their heads are hung 
With ears that sweep away the morning dew ; 
Crook-knee'd, and dew-lapp'd like Thessalian bulls ; 
Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells, 
Each under each. 13 A cry more tuneable 
Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn, 
In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly : 
Judge when you hear. — But, soft ! what nymphs are these ! 

Ege. My lord, this is my daughter here asleep ; 
And this, Lysander ; this Demetrius is ; 
This Helena, old Nedar's Helena : 
I wonder of their being here together. 

The. No doubt they rose up early to observe 
The rite of May ; and, hearing our intent, 
Came here in grace of our solemnity. — 
But speak, Egeus ; is not this the day 
That Hermia should give answer of her choice ? 

12 The jlews are the large chops of a deep-mouthed hound. — Sanded 
means of a sandy colour, which is one of the true denotements of a blood- 
hound. 

!3 " Match'd in mouth like bells " is with their several barking-tones so 
pitched as to harmonize with each other, like a chime of bells. This is 
shown by The Edinburgh Review for October, 1872. " It was a ruling con- 
sideration," says the writer, " in the formation of a pack, that it should pos- 
sess the musical fulness and strength of a perfect canine quire. And hounds 
of good voice were selected and arranged in the hunting chorus on the 
same general principles that govern the formation of a cathedral or any 
other more articulate choir." And this is fully justified by extracts from a 
writer contemporary with the Poet ; which, however, are too long for quo- 
tation here. 



SCENE I. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 91 

Ege. It is, my lord. 

The. Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns. — 
\Exit an Attendant. Horns and shout within. Lys., 
Dem., Hel., and Her., awake and start up. 
Good morrow, friends. — Saint Valentine is past : 
Begin these wood-birds but to couple now? 

Lys. Pardon, my lord. \_He and the rest kneel to Theseus. 

The. I pray you all, stand up. 

I know you two are rival enemies : 
How comes this gentle concord in the world, 
That hatred is so far from jealousy, 
To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity? 

Lys. My lord, I shall reply amazedly, 
Half sleep, half waking : but as yet, I swear, 
I cannot truly say how I came here ; 
But, as I think, — for truly would I speak, 
And now I do bethink me, so it is, — 
I came with Hermia hither : our intent 
Was to be gone from Athens, where we might, 
Without 14 the peril of th' Athenian law, — 

Ege. Enough, enough, my lord ; you have enough : 
I beg the law, the law, upon his head. — 
They would have stol'n away ; they would, Demetrius, 
Thereby to have defeated you and me, 
You of your wife, and me of my consent, — 
Of my consent that she should be your wife. 

Dem. My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth, 
Of this their purpose hither to this wood ; 
And I in fury hither follow'd them, 
Fair Helena in fancy following me. 
But, my good lord, I wot not by what power, — 

14 Without is here equivalent to beyond. The Poet has it repeatedly so. 



92 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. ACT IV 

But by some power it is, — my love to Hermia, 
Melted as melts the snow, seems to me now 
As the remembrance of an idle gaud, 
Which in my childhood I did dote upon ; 
And all the faith, the virtue of my heart, 
The object, and the pleasure of mine eye, 
Is only Helena. To her, my lord, 
Was I betroth'd ere I saw Hermia : 
But, like 15 in sickness, did I loathe this food; 
But, as in health, come to my natural taste, 
Now do I wish it, love it, long for it, 
And will for evermore be true to it. 

The. Fair lovers, you are fortunately met : 
Of this discourse we more will hear anon. — 
Egeus, I will overbear your will ; 
For in the temple, by-and-by, with us, 
These couples shall eternally be knit : 
And, for 16 the morning now is something worn, 
Our purposed hunting shall be set aside. — 
Away with us to Athens ! three and three, 
We'll hold a feast in great solemnity. — ■ 
Come, my Hippolyta. \_Exeunt The., Hip., Ege., and train 

Dem. These things seem small and undistinguishable, 
Like far-off mountains turned into clouds. 

Her. Methinks I see these things with parted eye, 17 
When every thing seems double. 

Hel. So methinks : 



15 Like was sometimes used with the force of the conjunction as. The 
usage still holds in some parts of the United States. 

16 Here, as often, for is equivalent to because, inasmuch as, or since. 

17 " With parted eye " means, apparently, with the two eyes acting sepa- 
rately or independently, and not together or as one. 



SCENE I. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 93 

And I have found Demetrius like a jewel, 
Mine own, and not mine own. 18 

Dem. But are you sure 

That we are well awake ? It seems to me 
That yet we sleep, we dream. — Do you not think 
The Duke was here, and bid us follow him ! 

Her. Yea ; and my father. 

Hel. And Hippolyta. 

Lys. And he did bid us follow to the temple. 

Dem. Why, then we are awake : let's follow him ; 
And, by the way, let us recount our dreams. [Exeunt. 

Bot. [Awaking.] When my cue comes, call me, and I 
will answer : my next is, Most fair Pyramus. — Heigh-ho ! 

— Peter Quince ! Flute the bellows-mender ! Snout the tink- 
er 1 Starveling ! — God's my life, stolen hence, and left me 
asleep ! I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, 

— past the wit of man to say what dream it was : man is but 
an ass, if he go about to expound this dream. Methought I 
was — there is no man can tell what. Methought I was, 
and methought I had, — but man is but a patch'd fool, 19 if 
he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye of man 
hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is 
not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to re- 



18 "As the jewel which one finds is his own and not his own; his own, 
unless the loser claims it." Not a very satisfactory explanation, perhaps ; 
but the best that is forthcoming. How Demetrius has been Helen's own 
and not her own, and thus like a double man, is plain enough ; but the 
simile of the jewel is not so clear. 

19 I have once before noted the Poet's frequent use of patch for fool. 
In illustration of the matter, Staunton tells of his having seen a Flemish 
picture of the sixteenth century, " which represents a procession of masquers 
and mummers, led by a Fool or jester, whose dress is covered wnh many- 
coloured coarse patches from head to heel." See page 65, note 2. 



94 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. ACT IV. 

port, what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a 
ballad of this dream : it shall be called Bottom's Dream, be- 
cause it hath no bottom ; and I will sing it in the latter end 
of our play before the Duke : peradventure, to make it the 
more gracious, I shall sing it after death. 20 \_Exit. 

Scene II. — Athens. A Room in Quince's House. 

Enter Quince, Flute, Snout, and Starveling. 

Quin. Have you sent to Bottom's house? is he come 
home yet? 

Star. He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt he is trans- 
ported. 1 

Flu. If he come not, then the play is marr'd : it goes not 
forward, doth it ? 

Quin. It is not possible : you have not a man in all 
Athens able to discharge Pyramus but he. 

Flu. No, he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft 
man in Athens. 

Quin. Yea, and the best person too ; and he is a very 
paramour for a sweet voice. 

Flu. You must say paragon : a paramour is, God bless us, 
a thing of naught. Enter Smo. 

Snug. Masters, the Duke is coming from the temple, and 
there is two or three lords and ladies more married : if our 
sport had gone forward, we had all been made men. 2 

20 Of course Bottom means the make-believe death which is to form the 
catastrophe of " our play." 

1 Starveling's transported means the same as Snout's translated, used 
before; that is, transformed or metamorphosed. 

2 To make a man is an old phrase for making a man rich or setting him 
up; making his fortune. 



scene ii. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 95 

Flu. O sweet bully Bottom ! Thus hath he lost sixpence 
a-day during his life ; he could not have 'scaped sixpence 
a-day : an the Duke had not given him sixpence a-day for 
playing Pyramus, I'll be hang'd; he would have deserved 
it : sixpence a-day in Pyramus, or nothing. 

Enter Bottom. 

Bot. Where are these lads? where are these hearts? 

Quin. Bottom ! — O most courageous day ! O most 
happy hour ! 

Bot. Masters, I am to discourse wonders : but ask me 
not what ; for, if I tell you, I am no true Athenian. I will 
tell you every thing, right as it fell out. 

Quin. Let us hear, sweet Bottom. 

Bot. Not a word of me. All that I will tell you is, that 
the Duke hath dined. Get your apparel together, good 
strings to your beards, new ribbons to your pumps; meet 
presently at the palace ; every man look o'er his part ; for 
the short and the long is, our play is preferred. 3 In any 
case, let Thisbe have clean linen ; and let not him that plays 
the lion pare his nails, for they shall hang out for the lion's 
claws. And, most dear actors, eat no onions nor garlic, for 
we are to utter sweet breath ; and I do not doubt but to 
hear them say it is a sweet comedy. No more words : 
away ! go ; away ! [Exeunt. 

3 Preferred is here used in a way somewhat peculiar, meaning, not that 
the play is chosen in preference to others, but that it is put forward to a 
chance of favour ; that is, recommended. 



q6 a midsummer-night's dream. act v. 



ACT V. 

Scene I. — Athens. An Apartment in the Palace of Theseus. 

Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, Philostrate, Lords, and 
Attendants. 

Hip. 'Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of. 
The. More strange than true : I never may believe 

These antique fables nor these fairy toys. 
^-Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, 1 

Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend 

More than cool reason ever comprehends. 

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet 

Are of imagination all compact : 2 
-* One sees more devils than vast Hell can hold, — 

That is the madman : the lover, all as frantic, 

Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt : 

The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, 

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven ; 

And, as imagination bodies forth 

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 

Turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing 

A local habitation and a name. 
"^SucTTtricks hath strong imagination, 

That, if it would but apprehend some joy, 

1 To seethe is to boil ; and the notion of the brains boiling in such cases 
was very common. So in The Tempest, v. i : " The brains, now useless, 
boitd within the skull." And in The Winter s Tale, iii. 3 : " Would any but 
these boil'd brains of nineteen and two-and-twenty hunt this weather? " 

2 That is, altogether composed or made up of imagination. Spenser often 
uses all for altogether, and Shakespeare has both all and compact repeat- 
edly in these senses. 



SCENE I. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 97 

It comprehends some bringer of that joy ; 
Or in the night, imagining some fear, 3 
How easy is a bush supposed a bear ! 

Hip. But all the story of the night told over, 
And all their minds transfigured so together, 
More witnesseth than fancy's images, 
And grows to something of great constancy ; 4 
But, howsoever, strange and admirable. 5 

The. Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth. — 

Enter Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia, and Helena. 

Joy, gentle friends ! joy and fresh days of love 
Accompany your hearts ! 

Lys. More than to us 

Wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed ! 

The. Come now ; what masques, what dances shall we 
have, 
To wear away this long age of three hours 
Between our after-supper and bed-time ? 
Where is our usual manager of mirth ? 
What revels are in hand ? Is there no play, 
To ease the anguish of a torturing hour ? 
Call Philostrate. 

Phil. Here, mighty Theseus. 

The. Say, what abridgement 6 have you for this evening? 

3 Fear for danger, or the thing feared ; a frequent usage. 

4 Constancy for consistency or congruity ; such as makes a story credible. 
One of the Latin senses of the word. 

5 Howsoever in the old sense of at all events ; and admirable in its proper 
Latin sense of wonderful. 

6 Abridgment probably means something that abridges, or shortens, the 
time ; a. pastime. Or it may mean a dramatic performance, that crowds the 
events of a long period into a brief space of time. 



98 a midsummer-night's DREAM. ACT v. 

What masque ? what music ? How shall we beguile 
The lazy time, if not with some delight ? 

Phil. There is a brief how many sports are ripe : 
Make choice of which your Highness will see first. 

[ Giving a paper, 

The. [Reads.] The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung 
By an Athenian eunuch to the harp. 
We'll none of that : that have I told my love, 
In glory of my kinsman Hercules. — 
[Reads.] The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals, 
Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage. 
That is an old device ; and it was play'd 
When I from Thebes came last a conqueror. — 
[Reads.] The thrice-three Muses mourning for the death 
Of Learning, late deceased in beggary. 
That is some satire, keen and critical, 7 
Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony. — 
[Reads.] A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus 
And his love Thisbe ; very tragical mirth. 
Merry and tragical ! tedious and brief ! 
That is, hot ice and wondrous swarthy snow. 
How shall we find the concord of this discord ? 

Phil. A play it is, my lord, some ten words long, 
Which is as brief as I have known a play ; 
But by ten words, my lord, it is too long, 
Which makes it tedious ; for in all the play 
There is not one word apt, one player fitted : 
And tragical, my noble lord, it is ; 
For Pyramus therein doth kill himself. 

7 Critical was sometimes used in the sense of cynical or censorious. So 
in Iago's well-known saying, Othello, ii. I : " For I am nothing, if not 
critical r 



SCENE i. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 99 

Which, when I saw rehearsed, I must confess, 
Made mine eyes water ; but more merry tears 
The passion of loud laughter never shed. 

The. What are they that do play it ? 

Phil. Hard-handed men, that work in Athens here, 
Which never labour'd in their minds till now \ 
And now have toil'd their unbreathed 8 memories 
With this same play, against your nuptial. 

The. And we will hear it. 

Phil. No, my noble lord \ 

It is not for you : I have heard it over, 
And it is nothing, nothing in the world, 
(Unless you can find sport in their intents,) 
Extremely stretch'd and conn'd with cruel pain, 
To do you service. 

The. I will hear that play ; 

For never any thing can be amiss, 
When simpleness and duty tender it. 
Go, bring them in : — and take your places, ladies. 

\_Exit Philostrate. 

Hip. I love not to see wretchedness o'ercharged, 
And duty in his service perishing. 

The. Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing. 

Hip. He says they can do nothing in this kind. 

The. The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing. 
Our sport shall be to take what they mistake : 
And what poor willing duty cannot do, 
Noble respect takes it in might, not merit. 9 

8 Unbreathed is unpractised or unexercised. The Poet has to breathe 
repeatedly in the opposite sense. So in Timon of Athens, i. 1 : "A man 
breathed, as it were, to an untirable and continuate goodness." 

9 According to the ability of the doer, not according to the worth of the 



IOO A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. ACT V. 

Where I have come, great clerks have purposed 
To greet me with premeditated welcomes ; 
When I have seen them shiver and look pale, 
Make periods in the midst of sentences, 
Throttle their practised accent in their fears, 
And, in conclusion, dumbly have broke off, 
Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet, 
Out of this silence yet I pick'd a welcome ; 
And in the modesty of fearful duty 
I read as much as from the rattling tongue 
Of saucy and audacious eloquence. 
Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity, 
In least speak most, to my capacity. 

Re-enter Philostrate. 

Phil. So please your Grace, the Prologue is address'd. 10 
The. Let him approach. [Flourish of Trumpets, 

Enter the Prologue. 

Pro. If we offend, it is with our good-will. 
That you should think, we come not to offend, 
But with good-will. To show our simple skill, 
That is the true beginning of our end. 
Consider, then, we come but in despite. 
We do not co?ne as minding to content you, 
Our true intent is. All for your delight, 
We are not here. That you should here repent you, 
The actors are at hand ; and, by their show, 

thing done. Here, as often, respect is consideration or regard. — Clerks, in 
the next line, is learned men, or scholars ; the old meaning of the word. 

10 Address d is ready, prepared ; a common use of the word. So in 
Love's Labours Lost, ii. i : " And he and his competitors in oath were all 
address d to meet you, gentle lady, before I came." 



SCENE I. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. IOI 

You shall know all that you are like to know} 1 \_Exit. 

The. This fellow doth not stand upon points. 

Lys. He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt ; he 
knows not ' the stop. A good moral, my lord : it is not 
enough to speak, but to speak true. 

Hip. Indeed he hath play'd on his prologue like a child 
on a recorder ; 12 a sound, but not in government. 

The. His speech was like a tangled chain ; nothing im- 
paired, but all disordered. Who is next? 

Enter the Presenter, with Pyramus and Thisbe, Wall, 
Moonshine, and Lion, as in dumb- show. 

Pres. Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show ; 
But wonder on, till truth make all things plain. 
This man is Pyramus, if you would know ; 
This beauteous lady, Thisbe is certain. 
This man, with loam and rough-cast, doth present 
Wall, that vile wall which did these lovers sunder; 
And through wall's chink, poor souls, they are content 
To whisper; at the which let no man wonder. 

11 Had " this fellow " stood " upon points," his speech would have read 
nearly as follows : 

If we offend, it is with our good-will 

That you should think we come not to offend; 

But with good-will to show our simple skill : 

That is the true beginning. Of our end 

Consider then : we come ; but in despite 

We do not come: as minding to content you, 

Our true intent is all for your delight. 

We are not here, that you should here repent you. 

The actors are at hand ; and, by their show, 

You shall know all that you are like to know. 

12 Recorder was the name of a soft-toned instrument, something like the 
flute. So in Paradise Lost, i. 550 : " Anon they move in perfect phalanx to 
the Dorian mood of flutes and soft recorders." 



102 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHTS DREAM. ACT V, 

This man, with lantern, dog, and bush of thorn, 
Presenteth Moonshine ; for, if 'you will know, 
By moonshine did these lovers think no scorn 
To meet at Ninus 1 tomb, there, there to woo. 
This grisly beast, which Lion hight 13 by name, 
The trusty Thisbe, coming first by night, 
Did scare away, or rather did affright; 
And, as she fled, her mantle she did fall, 
Which Lion vile with bloody mouth did stain. 
Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth and tall, 
And finds his trusty Thisbe' s mantle slain : 
Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade, 
He bravely broach 'd his boiling bloody breast ; 
And Thisbe, tarrying in mulberry shade, 
His dagger drew, and died. For all the rest, 
Let Lion, Moonshine, Wall, and lovers twain, 
At large discourse, while here they do remain. 

[Exeunt Presenter, Pyramus, Thisbe, 
Lion, and Moonshine. 

The. I wonder if the lion be to speak. 

Dem. No wonder, my lord : one lion may, when many 
asses do. 

Wall. Ln this same interlude it doth befall 
That L, one Snout by name, present a wall; 
And such a wall, as L would have you think, 
That had in it a crannied hole or chink, 
Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe, 
Did whisper often very secretly. 
This loa?n, this rough-cast, and this stone, doth show 

13 Hight is an old word for is called. So in Love's Labours Lost, i. I : 
" This child of fancy, that Armado hight, for interim to our studies, shall 
relate," &c. 



SCENE I. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. IO3 

That I am that same wall; the truth is so: 
And this the cranny is, right and sinister, 
Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper. 

The. Would you desire lime and hair to speak better? 

Dem. It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard dis- 
course, 14 my lord. 

The. Pyramus draws near the wall : silence ! 

Enter Pyramus. 

Pyr. O grim-look 'd /tight ! O night with hue so black! 
O night, which ever art when day is not! 

night, O night ! alack, alack, alack, 

1 fear my Thisbe's promise is forgot! — 
And thou, O wall, O sweet, lovely wall, 

That stand'st between her father's ground and mine ! 

Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall, 

Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne ! 

[Wall holds up his fingers. 
Thanks, courteous wall : Jove shield thee well for this ! 
But what see I? No This be do I see. 
O wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss ! 
Cursed be thy stones for thus deceiving me ! 

The. The wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse 
-again. 

Pyr. No, in truth, sir, he should not. Deceiving vie is 
Thisbe's cue : she is to enter now, and I am to spy her 
through the wall. You shall see it will fall pat as I told you. 
Yonder she comes. 

14 An equivoque or pun was no doubt intended here ; one sense of par- 
tition being that of dividing a theme of discourse into heads or topics. 
See Critical Notes. 



104 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. ACT V. 

Enter Thisbe. 

This. O wall, full often hast thou heard my moans, 
For parting my fair Pyramus and me / 
My cherry lips have often kiss'd thy stones, 
Thy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee. 

Pyr. / see a voice : now will I to the chink, 
To spy an I can hear my Thisbe'' 's face. — 
Thisbe ! 

This. My love ! thou art my love, I think. 

Pyr. Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover's Grace ; 
And, like Limander, 15 am I trusty still. 

This. And I like Helen, till the Fates me kill. 

Pyr. Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true. 

This. As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you. 

Pyr. O, kiss me through the hole of this vile wall 7 

This. I kiss the wall's hole, not your lips at all. 

Pyr. Wilt thou at Ninny's tomb meet me straightway ? 

This. 'Tide life, 'tide death, I come without delay. 

[Exeunt Pyramus and Thisbe. 

Wall. Thus have I, wall, my part discharged so ; 
And, being done, thus wall away doth go. [Exit. 

The. Now is the mural down between the two neigh- 
bours. 

Dem. No remedy, my lord, when walls are so wilful to 
hear without warning. 16 

Hip. This is the silliest stuff that e'er I heard. 

15 Limander and Helen, blunderingly, for Leander and Hero ; as, a little 
after, Shafalus and Procrus for Cephalus and Procris. Procris, or Procne 
was the wife of Cephalus ; and when Aurora fell in love with him, and tried 
to win his heart, he stuck to his Procne. See page 81, note 38. 

16 Alluding to the old proverb, " Walls have ears " ; which probably 
grew from the aptness of walls or partitions to transmit sound. 



SCENE I. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 

The. The best in this kind are but shadows ; and the 
worst are no worse, if imagination amend them. 

Hip. It must be your imagination then, and not theirs. 

The. If we imagine no worse of them than they of them- 
selves, they may pass for excellent men. Here come two 
noble beasts in, a moon and a lion. 

Enter Lion and Moonshine. 

Lion. You, ladies, you, whose gentle hearts do fear 
The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor, 
May now perchance both quake and tremble here, 
When lion rough in wildest rage doth roar. 
Then know that I one Snug the joiner am, 
No lion fell, nor else no lion's dam ; 
For, if I should as Hon come in strife 
Into this place, 'twere pity on my life. 

The. A very gentle beast, and of a good conscience. 

Dem. The very best at a beast, my lord, that e'er I saw. 

Lys. This lion is a very fox for his valour. 

The. True \ and a goose for his discretion. 

Dem. Not so, my lord ; for his valour cannot carry his 
discretion ; and the fox carries the goose. 

The. His discretion, I am sure, cannot carry his valour ; 
for the goose carries not the fox. It is well : leave it to his 
discretion, and let us listen to the Moon. 

Moon. This lantern doth the horned Moon present; — 

Dem. He should have worn the horns on his head. 

The. He is not crescent, and his horns are invisible 
within the circumference. 

Moon. This lantern doth the horned Moon present ; 
Myself the Man-V -the- Moon do seem to be. 

The. This is the greatest error of all the rest: the man 



106 a midsummer-night's DREAM. act v. 

should be put into the lantern. How is it else the Man-i'- 
the-Moon ? 

Dent. He dares not come there for the candle ; for, you 
see, it is already in snuff. 17 

Hip. I am alveary of this Moon : would he would 
change ! 

The. It appears, by his small light of discretion, that he is 
in the wane ; but yet, in courtesy, in all reason, we must 
stay the time. 

Lys. Proceed, Moon. 

Moon. All that I have to say is, to tell you that the lantern 
is the Moon ; I, the Man-in-the-Moon ; this thorn-bush, my 
thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog. 18 

Dem. Why, all these should be in the lantern ; for all 
these are in the Moon. But, silence ! here comes Thisbe. 

Enter Thisbe. 

This. This is old Ninny's tomb. Where is my love ? 

17 A quibble between snuff as meaning the cinder of a candle and as 
meaning sudden anger. Shakespeare has it repeatedly. 

18 The legend of the Man-in-the-Moon is very ancient, and is often al- 
luded to by the old Poets. Perhaps it took its origin from the rude and 
faint resemblance to a man's face which the full Moon presents. At all 
events, the notion was common in the days of my boyhood : the man was 
talked of by everybody, and I often saw him. And it appears that he was 
sometimes introduced upon the English stage. Ben Jonson, in his masque 
entitled " News from the New World discovered in the Moon," 1620, makes 
some of the persons tell how Poetry, " the mistress of all discovery," has 
sent one of her servants to the Moon " in search of truth," and he has just 
returned ; whereupon we have the following : 

Fact. Where ? which is he ? I must see his dog at his girdle, ard the bush of 
thorns at his back, ere I believe it. 

/ Herald. Do not trouble your faith then; for, if the bush of thorns should prove a 
goodly grove of oaks, in what case were you and your expectation? 

2 Herald. These are stale ensigns of the stage's Man in the Moon, delivered down 
to you by musty antiquity, and are of as doubtful credit as the makers. 



SCENE I. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 107 

Lion. [Roaring.] O [Thisbe runs off. 

Dem. Well roar'd, lion. 
The. Well run, Thisbe. 

Hip. Well shone, Moon. — Truly, the Moon shines with a 
good grace. \_Lion tears Thisbe's mantle, and exit. 

The. Well moused, 19 lion. 
Lys. And so the lion vanished. 
Dem. And then came Py ramus. 

Enter Pyramus. 

Pyr. Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams ; 
I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright; 
For, by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams, 
I trust to taste of truest Thisbe 1 s sight. 

But stay, — O spite ! — but mark, poor knight, 

What dreadful dole is here / 
Eyes, do you see ? how can it be ? 

O dainty duck f O dear / 
Thy mantle good, what, stain' d with blood? 

Approach, ye Furies fell 7 
O Fates, come, come, cut thread and thrum ; 

Quail, crush, conclude, and quell! 

The. This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would 
go near to make a man look sad. 

Hip. Beshrew my heart but I pity the man. 

Pyr. O, wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame ? 
Since lion vile hath here deflower'' d my dear : 



19 To mouse is to tear in pieces, as a cat tears a mouse. So in King 
John, ii. 1 : 

O, now doth Death line his dead chops with steel; 
The swords of soldiers are his teeth, his fangs ; 
And now he feasts, mousing the flesh of men. 



108 a midsummer-night's DREAM. ACT V. 

Which is — no, no — which was the fairest dame 
That lived, that loved, that liked, that look'd with cheer. 

Come, tears, confound ; out, sword and wound 

The pap of Py ramus, — 
Ay, that left pap, where heart doth hop : 

Thus die I, thus, thus, thus. [Stabs himself. 
Now am I dead, now am I fled ; 

My soul is in the sky : 
Tongue, lose thy light ! Moon, take thy flight / 

[Exit Moonshine. 
Now die, die, die, die, die. 

Dem. No die, but an ace, for him ; for he is but one. 

Lys. Less than an ace, man ; for he is dead ; he is nothing. 

The. With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover 3 
and prove an ass. 

Hip. How chance Moonshine is gone before Thisbe 
comes back and finds her lover ? 

The. She will find him by starlight. Here she comes ; 
and her passion ends the play. 

Re-enter Thisbe. 

Hip. Methinks she should not use a long one for such a 
Pyramus : I hope she will be brief. 

Dem. A mote will turn the balance, which Pyramus, 
which Thisbe, is the better ; he for a man, God warrant us, 
— she for a woman, God bless us. 
Lys. She hath spied him already with those sweet eyes. 
De?n. And thus she moans, videlicet: 
This. Asleep, my love ? what, dead, my dove ? 
O Pyram.us, arise / 
Speak, speak. Quite dumb ? Dead, dead? A tomb 
Must cover thy sweet eyes. 



SCENE I. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. ICX) 

These lily lips, this cherry nose, 

These yellow cowslip cheeks, 
Are gone, are gone : lovers, make moan : 

His eyes were green as leeks. 
O Sisters Three, come, come to me, 

With hands as pale as milk ; 
Lay them in gore, since you have shore 

With shears his thread of silk. 
Tongue, not a word: come, trusty sword; 

Come, blade, my breast imbrue : [Stabs herself. 
And, farewell, friends , — thus Thisbe ends, — 

Adieu, adieu, adieu. [Dies. 

The. Moonshine and Lion are left to bury the dead. 

Dem. Ay, and Wall too. 

Bot. No, I assure you ; the wall is down that parted their 
fathers. Will it please you to see the epilogue, or to hear a 
Bergomask dance 20 between two of our company ? 

The. No epilogue, I pray you ; for your play needs no 
excuse. Never excuse ; for, when the players are all dead, 
there need none to be blamed. Marry, if he that writ it 
had play'd Pyramus and hang'd himself in Thisbe's garter, it 
would have been a fine tragedy : and so it is, truly \ and very 
notably discharged. But, come, your Bergomask : let your 
epilogue alone. — \_A dance by two of the Clowns. 

The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve : — 
Lovers, to bed ; 'tis almost fairy-time. 
I fear we shall out-sleep the coming morn, 

20 A rustic dance framed in imitation of the people of Bergamasco, (a 
province in the state of Venice,) who are ridiculed as being more clownish 
in their manners and dialect than any other people of Italy. The lingua 
rustica of the buffoons, in the old Italian comedies, is an imitation of their 
jargon. 



1 10 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. act V. 

As much as we this night have overwatch'd. 

This palpable-gross play hath well beguiled 

The heavy gait of night. — Sweet friends, to bed. — 

A fortnight hold we this solemnity 

In nightly revels and new jollity. [Exeunt 

Enter Puck, with a broom. 

Puck. Now the hungry lion roars, 21 

And the wolf behowls the Moon j 
Whilst the heavy ploughman snores, 
All with weary task fordone.^- 
Now the wasted brands do glow, 
Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud, 
Puts the wretch that lies in woe 
In remembrance of a shroud. 
Now it is the time of night, 
That the graves, all gaping wide, 
Every one lets forth his sprite, 
In the church-way paths to glide : 
And we fairies, that do run 
By the triple Hecate's team 
From the presence of the Sun, 
Following darkness like a dream, 
Now are frolic > not a mouse 
Shall disturb this hallow'd house : 
I am sent, with broom, before, 



21 Upon this passage Coleridge thus remarks in his Literary Remains : 
" Very Anacreon in perfectness, proportion, grace, and spontaneity ! So far 
it is Greek; — but then add, what wealth, what wild ranging, and yet what 
compression and condensation, of English fancy ! In truth, there is noth- 
ing in Anacreon more perfect than these lines, or half so rich and imagina- 
tive. They form a speckless diamond." 



SCENE I. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 1 1 1 

To sweep the dust behind the door. 22 
Enter Oberon and Titania, with their Train, 

Ode. Through the house give glimmering light, 

By 23 the dead and drowsy fire ; 

Every elf and fairy sprite 

Hop as light as bird from brier ; 

And this ditty, after me, 

Sing, and dance it trippingly. 
Tita. /rirst, rehearse your song by rote, 

To each word a warbling note : 

Hand in hand, with fairy grace, 

Will we sing, and bless this place. 

Song, and Dance. 

Obe. Now, until the break of day, 

Through this house each fairy stray. 

22 That is, " To sweep the dust from behind the door." Collier informs 
us that on the title-page of the tract, Robin Goodfellow, his Mad Pranks and 
Merry Jests, Puck is represented in a wood-cut with a broom over his 
shoulder. The whole fairy nation, for which he served as prime minister, 
were great sticklers for cleanliness. In the old ballad entitled The Merry 
Pranks of Robin Goodfellow, and generally ascribed to Ben Jonson, we have 
the following : 

When house or hearth doth sluttish lie, 
I pinch the maidens black and blue ; 
The bed-clothes from the bed pull I, 
And lay them naked all to view : 
'Twixt sleep and wake I do them take, 
And on the key-cold floor them throw : 
If out they cry, then forth I fly, 
And loudly laugh out, ho, ho, ho ! 

23 By seems here to have the force of by means of, — no uncommon use 
of the word. — Milton was probably thinking of this passage in his // Pen- 
seroso : 

Where glowing embers through the room 
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom. 



112 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHTS DREAM. ACT V. 

To the best bride-bed will we, 

Which by us shall blessed be. 24 

So shall all the couples three 

Ever true in loving be ; 

And the blots of Nature's hand 

Shall not in their issue stand ; 

Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar, 

Nor mark prodigious, 25 such as are 

Despised in nativity, 

Shall upon their children be. 

With this field-dew consecrate, 

Every fairy take his gait ; 26 

And each several chamber bless, 

Through this palace, with sweet peace : 

And the owner of it, blest, 

Ever shall in safety rest. 

Trip away ; make no stay : 

Meet me all by break of day. 

\_Exeii7it Oberon, Titania, and Train. 
Puck. If we shadows have offended, 

Think but this, and all is mended, — 
That you have but slumber'd here 
While these visions did appear. 
And this weak and idle theme, 

24 This ceremony was in old times used at all marriages. Douce has 
given the formula from the Manual for the use of Salisbury. In the French 
romance of Melusine, the Bishop who marries her to Raymondin blesses 
the nuptial bed. The ceremony is there represented in a very ancient cut. 
The good prelate is sprinkling the parties with holy water. Sometimes, 
during the benediction, the married couple only sat on the bed; but they 
generally received a portion of the consecrated bread and wine. 

25 Prodigious in the Latin sense of unnatural, portentous, or ill-fated. 

26 That is, take his way, pursue his course. 



SCENE I. A MIDSUMMER-NIGHTS DREAM. II3 

No more yielding but a dream, 
_ Gentles, do not reprehend : 
If you pardon, we will mend. 
And, as I'm an honest Puck, 27 
If we have unearned luck 
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue, 28 
We will make amends ere long ; 
Else the Puck a liar call : 
So, good night unto you all. 
Give me your hands, 29 if we be friends, 
And Robin shall restore amends. [Exit. 

27 Puck, it seems, was a suspicious name, which makes that this merry, 
mischievous gentleman does well to assert his honesty. As for the name 
itself, it was no better than fiend or devil. In Pierce Ploughman's Vision, 
one personage is called helle Pouke. And the name thus occurs in Spen- 
ser's Epithalamion : 

Ne let the fiotike, nor other evill sprights, 
Ne let mischievous witches with theyr charmes, 
Ne let hobgoblins, names whose sence we see not, 
Fray us with things that be not. 

28 Honest Puck, it seems, has a mortal dread of being hissed. 

29 Clap your hands, give us your applause. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 



Act i., Scene i. 

Page 24. And then the moon, like to a silver bow 

New-bent in heaven. — Instead of New-bent, the old copies 
have Now-bent, which is inconsistent with what has been said a little 
before, — " How slow this old moon wanes ! " Corrected by Rowe. 

P. 25. This man hath witch'd the bosom of my child. — The quartos 
and first folio have " This man hath bezvitcttd." The second folio rec- 
tifies the metre by omitting man. Theobald reads as in the text. 

P. 29. O cross ! too high to be enthraWd to low! — The old copies 
have love instead of low. Corrected by Theobald. 

P. 30. I have a widow aunt, a dowager 

Of great revenue, and she hath no child; 

And she respects me as her only son. 

From Athens is her house remote seven leagues : &c. — The old 
text has the last two of these lines transposed. This manifestly upsets 
the proper order and sequence of the thoughts. The correction is 
Keightley's. Such transpositions are uncommonly frequent in this play. 

P. 31. By his best arrow with the golden head, — 

By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves ; 
By the simplicity of Venus' doves. — The third of these lines 
stands the second in the old copies. I concur with Singer in making 
the transposition; because, as he aptly notes, the passage clearly al- 
ludes to " the golden arrow of Cupid, that knitted souls, as opposed to 
the leaden one that makes loves unprosperous. The Poet doubtless 
had in mind Ovid, Metam., i. 468-471 : 

Eque sagittifera prompsit duo tela pharetra 
Diversorum operum: fugat hoc, facit illud amorem: 
Quod facit, auratum est et cuspide fulget acuta ; 
Quod fugat, obtusum est et habet sub arundine plumbum. 

"5 



Il6 a midsummer-night's dream. 

P. 32. Sickness is catching : O, were favour so, 
Yours would / catch, fair Hermia , ere I go ; 
My hair should catch your hair, my eye your eye, 
My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody. 
Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated, 
The rest I'd give, to be to you translated. — In the second of 
these lines, the old copies have your words instead of yours would. 
Corrected by Hanmer. In the last line, the old text reads " The rest 
He give." Corrected by Lettsom,' who remarks how apt the old con- 
tractions Pll and Pde were to be confounded. Again, in the third 
line, the old copies read " My ear should catch your voice." A strange 
reading indeed for the place. The reading in the text was proposed 
by Lettsom. The reasons for it need not be better given than in his 
own words : " As the passage stands at present, Helena wishes her 
ear may resemble the voice of Hermia ! I conceive that, in the first 
place, heare — heare [a common old spelling of hair\ was transformed 
into eare — eare by a blundering transcriber. The verse was then 
operated upon by a sophisticator, who regarded nothing but the line 
before him, and was not aware of the true meaning of my eye your eye, 
but took catch in the ordinary sense, not in the peculiar sense of con- 
tracting disease, which it bears throughout the passage." 

P. 32. Her. His folly, Helen, is no fault of mine. 

Hel. None but your beauty's : would that fault were mine ! 
— In the first of these lines, the old text has Helena instead of Helen, 
and, in the second, beauty instead of beauty's. The latter correction is 
Mr. P. A. Daniel's. 

P. 33. And thence from Athens turn away your eyes, 

To seek new friends and stranger companies. — So Theobald. 
The old copies have strange companions instead of stranger companies. 
The need of a rhyme for eyes pointed out and justifies the change. 
Also, in the third line before, the old text has " their counsell sweW ; 
which Theobald happily corrected to "their counsel sweet:' 

Act i., Scene 2. 
P. 35. To the rest. — Yet my chief humour is for a tyrant.— 



CRITICAL NOTES. 



117 



Staunton prints "To the rest yet, my chief humour," &c., and explains 
yet by now. Dyce has it the same. I cannot understand why. 

P. 36. This is Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein ; a lover's is more con- 
doling. — The old text has lover instead of lover's. Corrected by Mr 
P. A. Daniel. 



P. 38. Quin. Take pains; be perfect : adieu. — So Collier's second 
folio. The old text makes the words here quoted a part of Bottom's 
preceding speech. 



Act ii., Scene i. 

P. 39. / do wander everywhere 

Swifter than the moony sphere. —The old copies have "the 
moons sphere." This has been changed to " the moones sphere " by 
several editors. As White remarks, " moony sphere " was a recognized 
poetical phrase in Shakespeare's time. And Steevens pointed out a 
passage in Sidney's Arcadia as supporting the reading in the text: 
" What mov'd me to invite your presence, sister dear, first to my moony 
sphere." Whether moones or moony be the right word, I think it is 
plain that the Poet would not have allowed a breach in the metre here. 

P. 41. That frights the maidens of the villagery ; 

Skims milk, and sometime labours in the quern, 
And bootless makes the, &c. — Here the old copies have frights, 
as correct grammar requires, and then drop the corresponding forms 
in the following verbs, printing Skim, labour, make, &c. Surely they 
ought all to run in the same number. 

P. 41. Fairy, thou speak 'si aright. So Collier's second folio. The 
old copies lack Fairy. Other attempts have been made, to complete 
the verse, but this is the best. 

P. 42. But room now, fairy ! here comes Oberon. — So Dyce. The 
old copies have "But ioome Fairy." The more common reading is 
"But make room, fairy." 



Il8 a midsummer-night's dream. 

P. 42. What, jealous Oberon ! — Fairies, skip hence. — The old text 
has "Fairy, skip hence"; which supposes that Titania is here speak- 
ing to Oberon ; whereas the words are evidently addressed to her 
train of fairies. Corrected by Theobald. 

P. 44. The human mortals want their minstrelsy, — 

No night is no%v with hymn or carol blest. — The old editions 
read "want their winter heere." This cannot possibly be right: it 
gives a sense all out of harmony with the context, and is further con- 
victed of error by the strained explanations resorted to in its defence. 
Theobald at one time conjectured "want their winter cheer'''' ; but he 
afterwards withdrew the conjecture : nevertheless it has been adopted 
by several editors. Keightley proposes "want their Summer here " ; 
but I cannot see that this really helps the matter. I think the next 
line naturally points out minstrelsy as the right correction. 

P. 44. Therefore the Moon, the governess of floods, 

Pale in her anger, washes all the air ; 

And thorough this distemperature we see 

That rheumatic diseases do abound. — The old text has the 
last two of these lines transposed; which quite untunes the logic of the 
passage. The correction is Johnson's. 

P. 45. And on old Hiems 1 thin and icy crown. — The old copies 
have chin instead of thin. The correction is Tyrwhitt's, and is very 
happy. Dyce ridicules the old reading : " In most of the modern edi- 
tions Hiems figures with a chaplet of summer buds on his chin." 

P. 47. I'd put a girdle round about the Earth 

In forty minutes. — So Collier's second folio and Lettsom. 
The old copies have He instead of Pd. See note on " The rest I'd 
give," page 116. 

P. 48. The one Pll slay, the other slayeth me. — In the old copies, 
"The one He stay, the other stayeth me. The reading in the text is 
Thirlby's. 



CRITICAL NOTES. I 19 

P. 48. But yet you draw not iron, for my heart 

Is true as steel. — Lettsom suspects we ought to read though 
instead of for, and I suspect he is right, as he is apt to be. As though 
was often written tho, it might easily get misprinted for. 

P. 49. / will not stay thy question ; let me go. — In the old text, 
questions instead of question. Steevens conjectured the latter ; Walker 
also. See foot-note 30. 

P. 50. Puck. Ay, here it is. 

Obe. I pray thee give it me. — The old 

copies read "Ay, there it is"; which, as Lettsom remarks, is incon- 
sistent" with Oberon's "give it me." 

P. 50. / know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows, 
Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows ; 
Quite over canopied with lush woodbine. — Instead of whereon 
and lush, the old copies have where and lushious. It does not seem 
to me possible that Shakespeare could have tolerated such haltings in 
the verse here. Elsewhere he uses lush with the same sense. The 
correction was made by Theobald, and is also found in Collier's second 
folio. 

P. 50. And where the snake throivs her enameWd skin, 
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in : 
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night 
LulPd in this bower with dances and delight. — The order of 
these two couplets is reversed in the old copies, which breaks the con- 
tinuity of the thought, making two transitions to Titania where both 
logic and grammar require there should be but one. Moreover, with 
the old order it would naturally seem that Oberon was to streak the 
snake's eyes instead of Titania's. The originals also read " And there 
the snake," &c. In the fourth line, the old copies read " Lull'd in 
these flowers." Instead of flowers, Collier's second folio has bowers, 
which White adopts. I do not well see why the plural of that word 
should be used there. Lettsom proposed this bower, with the remark, 
" Probably bower was in the first instance miswritten flower ; then 
succeeded the sophistication these flowers, an awkward attempt to pro- 



120 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHTS DREAM. 

cure sense." The reading this bower is further approved in iii. I, at 
the close, where Titania, after she has got smitten with Bottom, tells 
the attendant fairies to " lead him to my bower." 



Act il, Scene 2. 

P. 51. Come, now a roundel and a fairy song; 

Then, 'fore the third part of a minute, hence. — So Theobald. 
Instead of fore, the old copies have for, which, as it must mean 
during, does not at all accord with the business on which Titania 
orders the fairies to depart. Heath proposes to substitute in, and then 
explains, "That is, after your song and dance ended, vanish in the 
third part of a minute, and leave me to my rest." But fore gives a 
sense quite as fitting, and infers an easier misprint ; else I should 
prefer ere. 

P. 54. Pretty soul! she durst not lie 

Nearer this Idck-love, this kill-courtesy. — The old copies have 
" Neere this lack-love," which Pope changed to " Near to this lack- 
love." The correction in the text is Walker's. 

P. 55. Transparent Helen ! Nature shows her art, 

That through thy bosom makes vie see my heart. — The old text 
has " Transparent Helena ",• upon which Walker notes, " Read Helen, 
as in half-a-dozen other passages of this play." — Again, in "shows 
her art," the quartos omit her altogether ; the first folio has "her 
shewes art"; the second, "here shewes art." Corrected by Malone. — 
In the second line also, the old copies have " see thy heart." Here, 
again, Walker says, " Read ' my heart.' The old poetical common- 
place; e.g., As You like It, v. 4: 

That thou mightst join her hand with his 
Whose heart within her bosom is." 

P. 55. And leads me to your eyes ; where I overlook 

Love-stories, written in Love's richest book. — So Walker. The 
old copies, " Loves stories." 



CRITICAL NOTES. 121 



Act hi., Scene 



P. 57. There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisbe thai 
will never please. — Walker thinks we ought to read " There are three 
things," &c. Probably. 



P. 59. Let him have some plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast 
about him, to signify ?vall ; and let him hold his fingers thus. — The old 
copies have " or let him hold." Probably, as Dyce notes, " a mistake 
occasioned by or occurring twice just before." Corrected from Collier's 
second folio. 



P. 59. Thisbe, the flowers of odious savour sweet ; 

So doth thy breath, my dearest Thisbe dear. — Instead of 
savour, the old copies have savours, which is evidently used as a verb, 
and which is not in the style of the blunders that mark the interlude. 
The same is to be said of the second line, where the old text reads 
" So hath thy breath," which Pope corrected to " So doth thy breath." 

P. 60. An if I were, fair Thisbe, I were only thine. — In the old 
copies, An is wanting at the beginning of this line, and what follows 
is printed "were fair, Thisbe." This quite upsets the metre of the 
line, whereas the verse is remarkably regular throughout the interlude. 
The printing, " If I were fair, Thisbe," is commonly retained upon the 
supposal of its being meant as a blunder of Bottom's. But such a 
blunder, it seems to me, were rather too fine-drawn to be appreciated 
on the stage. Perhaps we ought to read " If I were true, fair Thisbe," 
&c; which is the meaning either way, as the words are spoken in 
reply to Thisbe's "As true as truest horse," &c. 

P. 65. Tie up 7ny love's tongue, bring him silently. — The old 
copies have " my lovers tongue " ; which both untunes the metre and 
gives a wrong sense, as Bottom is plainly Titania's love, and not her 
lover. Corrected by Pope. 



122 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM. 



Act hi., Scene 2. 

P. 67. Being o'er shoes in blood, plunge in knee-deep. — The old 
text is "plunge in the deep." Coleridge proposed knee-deep t and 
Walker approves the happy correction. 

P. 67. So should a murderer look, — so dread, so grim. — So Pope. 
The old copies have dead instead of dread. What sense dead should 
have there, I fail to perceive. Johnson found dread written in the 
margin of his copy. 

P. 68. And from thy hated presence part I so : 

See me no more, whether he be dead or no. — So Pope. The 
old editions omit so. 

P. 71. This princess of pure white, this seal of bliss ! — Instead of 
princess, Hanmer reads pureness, and Collier's second folio has im- 
press. Lettsom proposes purest, which is exceedingly apt. See, how- 
ever, foot-note 14. 

P. 72. My heart with her but as guest-wise sojourned. — The old 
editions have to instead of with. Johnson's correction. 

P. 72. Lest, to thy peril, thou aby it dear. 

Look, where thy love comes ; yonder is thy dear. — This repeti- 
tion of dear for a rhyme looks hardly right. Walker suggests " aby it 
here." 

P. 73. Ls all the counsel that we two have shared, 

The sister-vows, the hours that we have spent, 

When we have chid the hasty-footed time 

For parting us, — O, and is all forgot ? 

All school-day friendship, childhood innocence? 

We, Hermia, like huo artificial gods, 

Have with our neelds created both one flower. — Instead of 
sister-vows, the old text has sister's vowes ; also, schooledaies instead 
of school-day, and needles instead of neelds. Dyce says " there can be 



CRITICAL NOTES. 123 

little doubt that Shakespeare wrote neelds, — which was a very com- 
mon contraction of needles" Of course the change is made for metre's 
sake. — In the fourth line, also, the earlier old copies read " O, is all 
forgot? " omitting and, which was supplied in the second folio. Sped- 
ding proposes "O, is it all forgot?" I should prefer "O, is all this 
forgot?" The other two corrections are CapelPs. 

P. 74. Two lovely berries moulded on one stem. — Collier's second 
folio changes lovely to loving. Dyce rejects the change, on the ground 
that lovely was " sometimes used as equivalent to loving." And he 
quotes from The Taming of the Shrew, iii. 2, " And seal the title with 
a lovely kiss"; also from Peele's Arraigntnent of Paris, "And I will 
give thee many a lovely kiss." Which seems, indeed, to make good 
his point : but is it certain that in the text lovely is to be taken in the 
active sense of loving? 

P. 75. If you had any pity, grace, or manners, 

You would not ma he me such an argument. — So Collier's 
second folio; the old copies, "If you have any pity," &c. 

P. 75. Thy threats have no more strength than her weak prayers. — 
So Theobald. The old text reads " her weak praise." Hardly worth 
noting, perhaps. 

P. 75. No, no, sir: — do; 

Seem to break loose, lake on as you would follow, 
But yet come not. — A troublesome passage as it stands in the 
old copies. I give the folio reading, except that I supply the word do, 
which seems necessary to the sense. Dyce, at the suggestion of Lett- 
som, supplies you instead of do; thus: "No, no, sir; you seem to 
break loose." Demetrius is taunting Lysander, as if the latter were 
making believe that he wants to break loose from Hermia, who is 
clinging to him, and go apart with Demetrius, and fight it out. This 
sense, it seems to me, is much better preserved by do than by you. 
We have a like use of do a little before : " Ay, do, persever, counterfeit 
sad looks." Also in King Lear, i. 1 : "Do; kill thy physician, and 
the fee bestow upon the foul disease." 



124 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT S DREAM. 

P. 76. Out, loathed medicine! hated potion, hence! — The first 
quarto has "0 hated potion," the others, "(9 hated poison." 

P. 76. Hate me ! wherefdre ? me ! what means my love ? — So 
Collier's second folio. The old copies read "what newes my love?" 
I cannot find any sense in newes here. 

P. 82. Ho, ho, ho, ho ! coward, why comest thou not ? — So CapelL 
The fourth ho, needful to complete the verse, is not in the old copies. 



Act iv., Scene i. 

P. 86. Nothing, good monsieur, but to help Cavalery Cobweb to 
scratch. — So the old copies. Gray says, " Without doubt, it should be 
Cavalero Peas-blossom : as for Cavalcro Cobweb, he has just been dis- 
patched upon a perilous adventure." Accordingly Dyce prints Peas- 
blossom instead of Cobweb : but this is assuming the mistake to be the 
Poet's or printer's, and not Bottom's. I am not sure of that. See 
foot-note 3. 

P. 86. J have a venturous fairy that shall seek 

The squirrels hoard, and fetch thee thence new nuts. — In the 
old copies thence is lacking, a gap being left in the verse. Other inser- 
tions have been proposed, — " fetch for thee new nuts," and " fetch 
thee the new nuts." I concur with Dyce in preferring that in the text. 
Hanmer's correction. 

P. 86. Fairies, be gone, and be awhile away. — 

Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms : 

So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle. — In the old copies, 

what is here printed as the first line is thrust in between the other two. 

Lettsom suggested the transposition. — The old text also reads "and 

be alwaies away." Theobald changed alwaies to all ways, which Dyce 

adopts. The reading in the text is Hanmer's. 

P. 87. And her fairies sent 

To bear him to my bower in Fairy-land. — So Dyce. The old 
editions have " her fairy sent," which does not harmonise with the 
occasion. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 12$ 

P. 89. Uncouple in the western valley ; let them go. — ■ So the old 
copies. Dyce omits the words let them, for no other purpose, I suppose, 
but to avoid a line of six feet. But this, it seems to me, is hardly 
reason enough for such a step; for the Poet often intersperses Alex- 
andrines among his regular pentameters ; though, to be sure, he does 
it very little in this play. Of course, " let them go " refers to the 
uncoupling of the hounds, which were commonly tied or coupled 
together, to hold them back from pursuit of the game, till it were time 
to let the??i go. 

P. 89. When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the boar. — The old 
copies have beare instead of boar. Hanmer and Capell printed boar ; 
and Walker remarks that " the story of Meleager would be sufficient 
to suggest it to Shakespeare." 

P. 90. Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouth like bells. — I have 
stated, in foot-note 13, the principle upon which hounds were selected, 
to make up what was called a cry. As the matter is rather curious, I 
here add a passage from a writer contemporary with Shakespeare, as 
quoted in The Edinburgh Review, October, 1 872 : " If you would have 
your kennell for sweeteness of cry, then you must compound it of 
some large dogges, that have deepe solemne mouthes, and are swift in 
spending, which must, as it were, beare the base in the consort ; then 
a double number of roaring and loud ringing mouthes, which must 
beare the counter tenor ; then some hollow, plaine, sweete mouthes, 
which must beare the meane or middle part ; and soe with these three 
parts of musicke you shall make your cry perfect. — If you would have 
your kennell for depth of mouth, then you shall compound it of the 
largest dogges, which have the greatest mouthes, the deepest flews ; 
and to five or sixe couple of base mouthes you shall not adde above 
two couple of counter-tenors, as many meanes, and not above one 
couple of roarers, which, being heard but now and then, as at the 
opening or hitting of a sent, will give much sweetnesse to the solemnes 
and gravenesse of the crye ; and the musick thereof will bee much 
more delightfull to the eares of every beholder." 

P. 92. My love to Hermia, 

Melted as melts the snow, seems to me now, &c. — So Dyce„ 
The old copies are without melts. Capell and Collier's second folio 



126 A midsummer-night's dream. 

read " Melted as doth the snow." Clearly there ought to be no breach 
in the metre here. 

P. 92. Come, my Hippolyta. — So Steevens, approved by Walker. 
The old copies omit my. 

P. 93. But are you sure 

That we are well awaked? — This is not in the folio, and the 
words But and well are not in the quartos. Capell inserted them ; and 
Lettsom says, " I had hit upon the same conjectures long before I be- 
came acquainted with Capell." 

P. 94. / will sing it in the latter end of our play before the Duke : 
peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall sing it after death. — 
The old copies read "end of a play," and " sing it at her death." The 
former correction is Walker's, the latter Theobald's. 



Act v., Scene i. 

P. 96. And, as imagination bodies forth 

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 

Turns them to shape. — So Pope. The old copies have shapei 
instead of shape. One of the commonest misprints is that of singulars 
and plurals for each other. 

P. 98. That is, hot ice and wondrous swarthy snow. — So Staunton 
conjectures. The old copies have " strange snow." Hanmer printed 
" scorching snow," and Collier's second folio has " seething snow." 

P. 98. A play it is, my lord, some ten words long. — So Hanmer. 
The old copies, "A play there is"; Collier's second folio, "A play 
this is." 

P. 99. And what poor willing duty cannot do. — So Theobald. The 
old text lacks willing. 

P. 100. When / have seen them shiver and look pale, &c. — So Dyce. 
The old text has Where instead of When. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 127 

P. ioi. This man, with loam and rough-cast, doth present. — The 
old copies here read "with lime and rough-cast." But, in Wall's 
speech, a little after, they have " This loame, this rough-cast," &c. So, 
also, in hi. I : "And let him have some plaster, or some Lome, or some 
rough-cast about him." 

P. 103. // is the wittiest partition that ever I heard discourse. — 
Farmer would read " heard in discourse," taking it as an allusion " to 
the many stupid partitions in the argumentative writings of the time." 
I suspect Farmer is right. 

P. 104. Now is the mural dotvn between the two neighbours. — So 
Theobald. Instead of mural, the quartos have Moon used, the folio 
morall. 

P. 105. Here come two noble beasts in, a moon and a lion. — Instead 
of moon, the old copies have man. Theobald's correction. 

P. 105. Then know that I one Snug the joiner am, 

No lion fell, nor else no lion's dam. — So Rowe, and Walker 
also, without knowing that Rowe had anticipated him. The old copies 
read "A lion fell." 

P. 105. He is not crescent. — The old text has no instead of not. 
Corrected in Collier's second folio. 

P. 107. Lys. And so the lion vanished. 

Dem. And then came Pyramus. — The old copies invert the 
order of these two speeches. Spedding suggested the transposition. 

P. 107. For, by thy gracious, golden, gliti:Hn^ gleams. — The old 
copies, quartos and first folio, have beames, second folio, streames. 
Knight conjectured gleams, and Walker thinks " the alliteration re- 
quires " it. 

P. 108. And thus she moans. — So Theobald. The old text has 
meanes instead of moans. 



128 a midsummer-night's dream. 

P. I io. Now the hungry lion roars, 

And the wolf behowls the Moon. — The old copies have "be- 
holds the Moon "; an obvious erratum. 

P. III. Through the house give glimmering light, 

By the dead and drowsy fire ; 

Every elf and fairy sprite 

Hop as light as bird from brier. — The first two of these line 
have troubled editors a good deal. Dyce pronounces it " a most per 
plexing passage." Johnson proposed "Through this house in glim 
mering light." White changes Through to Though ; but his reading, 
together with his explanation, seems rather to darken what is certainly 
none too light. Lettsom conjectures " Through this hall go glimmering 
light." This is both ingenious and poetical in a high degree ; but he 
probably would not himself venture on so bold a change. I suspecl 
that By is simply to be taken as equivalent to by means of Taking ii 
so, I fail to perceive any thing very dark or perplexing in the passage 

P. m. Song, and Dance. — The stage-direction here is usually 
printed as if what follows were the fairies' song ; which is clearly 
wrong, the following lines being spoken by Oberon, after the song and 
dance are ended. As for the fairies' song on this occasion, it has 
never, I believe, been heard of since. 

P. 112. And the owner of it, blest, 

Ever shall in safety rest. — The old text inverts the order of 
these lines. The transposition is Staunton's. Various other changes 
have been proposed, such as " Ever shall it safely rest," — "E'er shall 
it in safety rest," — and " Ever shall' t in safety rest "; but that in the 
text seems, on the whole, the most satisfactory. 



jUN S3 1308 



